


The Botmother vs. Aliens vs. Predator

by mydarksidelovesthis



Series: Botmother [5]
Category: Alien Quadrilogy (Movies), Alien vs Predator: Requiem, Aliens: Labyrinth (Comics), Predator 2 (1990), Transformers Age of Extinction - Fandom, Transformers The Last Knight
Genre: (But doesn't admit it), Action, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bayverse AU, Blood, Dirty Fighting, Earth, Fights, Gen, Gore, Megatron watches Game of Thrones, Nitro Zeus likes Dirty Jokes, Original Character(s), POV First Person, POV Original Female Character, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Predator on the Hunt, Science Fiction, Transformers suck against Aliens, Transformers suck against Predators, Xenomorphs do Xenomorph stuff, and against humans too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 81,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24105718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydarksidelovesthis/pseuds/mydarksidelovesthis
Summary: Since the events in Chicago humans don't like Transformers anymore and Seldra has to hide her second nature. On top of all two more alien species appear in the city and everyone hunts everyone - what do they all just want here??
Relationships: Se-eldra Sadr'khor (OC) & Itsy (OC)
Series: Botmother [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622833
Kudos: 1





	1. Back on Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Die Botmutter vs. Aliens vs. Predator](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104935) by [mydarksidelovesthis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydarksidelovesthis/pseuds/mydarksidelovesthis). 



> Dear Reader,
> 
> the background is roughly based on the AOE and TLK movies. It's not that much "Transformers" fighting the other Aliens, but mostly Seldra, although that would have been really cool. But Transformers suck against acid blood and invisibility, hence that story would have been much shorter. As short as the list of Chicago survivors.
> 
> Also I made sure this works well without reading the first part of the series. I mean, there are a lot of references to past events, which are not shown in the previous stories either.
> 
> Kind regards,  
> My Alien Side Loves This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra lands on Earth and makes herself at home. For her protoform Itsy everything is new.

"We are there" a gentle, female voice wakes me. The pain does the rest - my body is still covered with green and yellow stains that once were blue and purple.

"Are you alright?" the small insect-like robot asks me who sits on my lap.

Itsy - he grew since I gave him that name. Also the space ship Headache grew while I was barely awake for the last weeks. When we departed there was barely room in her, now she has developed to a commodious space ship.

Headache shows our location on the big screen: The Earth before the black outer space nearly fills the whole screen.

"Which year do we have?" I ask.

"2013" the ship answers. "Do you want to go further back?"

That are two years after my kidnapping by the Decepticons. One year after my escape from Cybertron. My past self is in this moment on the way through space to Earth and will arrive in the Kuiper Belt in about 300 years. No machine being expects my presence here. Nobody searches for me.

"2013 is perfect."

"Where do you want me to drop you?"

I point to the continent on the left in the picture. "Over there. But I want to note that I didn't consent to Primus's change of the plan."

"I got my orders" Headache replies untouched. She has a voice and no heart. "Fasten the belts, we're landing."

I cling protectively to the small robot being on my lap.

Still upset about the rough treatment - Headache nearly threw me out and immediately departed - now I run without destination over fields and through waste land until I find a road and follow it. Only when in the next place I open up a newspaper tears of joy are flowing. Headache has fulfilled my biggest wish and brought me home, to my world, to my time. I thank her quietly.

After the silence of the last few months now I receive the messages of the Decepticons on the common frequency. It seems to be peaceful at the moment, because they only exchange about everyday questions. Sometimes they complain about the underdeveloped creatures that populate the planet.

Luckily there is no-one among them I know. It's possible that most of them only heard about me. As long as I don't attract attention I shouldn't have any problems.

Somehow I missed them. The radio silence in space and on planets where no Cybertronians stay or where they don't dare to communicate wirelessly make a forsaken, threatening impression.

"Do you hear them?" I ask Itsy when we are alone in my flat. Maybe hearing is not the right word, maybe reading fits better. He knows what I mean.

The insect-like robot who on his six legs stands about eight inches high whispers in Cybertronian language: "Yes."

"They must not know that I'm here, so I will never send anything and you may only contact me in the outermost emergency in that way. But you can say them Hello if you like."

I can pick up my previous life without anyone wondering, only the humans will note me. Hm, maybe I should change my name, just to be sure.

However, I remember the words from Lopez, when he re-checked my identity information with Earth: "A person of that name was declared missing on Earth more than 300 years ago." Now I'm back here. Shouldn't he have seen my reappearance in the database, given that this was the past of my timeline? Time traveling is confusing. No wonder that the Cybertronians don't trust humans with that technology.

Itsy looks at me with hesitation and doesn't react.

I add: "When I'm not there anymore, maybe the Decepticons are your new family, if you want to. Autobots ... I don't think you want to join them, but if you have no choice ..."

I cannot deny Itsy's descent. All his siblings showed that typical antipathy against humans. The red optical sensors make their own statement. Do we have a choice on which side we like to be or is it destined? For me it seems the Decepticon nature is inborn, but I also heard opinions saying it was a choice.

Itsy starts to cry and I rush to him to comfort him. After all we stood through together he is not prepared to accept my death. I hope that we have enough time left to make him put up to the thought. "Look, my health is not the best, but beside that: humans get hundred years old at best. You are a machine and you can exist for millions of years. Don't be sad, okay? We still have enough time to spend nice moments together."

"I cannot imagine to exist without you."

I sigh and pat him. "I pulled you from my spark. You are my son. I will always be with you. Imagine one day I'm at another place where you cannot visit me, but I'm fine and I want you to be fine, too." Nervously Itsy steps from one side to the other. Oh my. Maybe it was a mistake to create Itsy under that circumstances. But I had no choice.

"I prefer to have you with me in person."

"I'll take care of myself. I promise."

However. I will make up my mistake by attentive education.

Sometimes when I didn't know what to do I created a simulation of the happening in an interplay of my human brain and my machine processor, so I could act without it having any impact on reality. Besides that I learned something important from it.

This time I visited an old-known place. How long had I not been here? The last few times it was also only in simulations.

I returned to the quiet side street in Sassaheim. The house was easy to spot, because its fence that was grown over by blooming rose tendrils was the most beautiful one in the street. I looked over it. An old woman in a trouser suit and with a strew hat worked in the garden, where tulips and lavender were growing. She hoed up the weeds.

It seemed so familiar, but also foreign. The roses at the fence now grew in three colors and the tendrils were thicker and more numerous than in my memory. The flower beds now are cleanly zoned and a way of stone plates had been built. The lilac in the front garden was gone. Similar to dreams the simulation was fed by my subconsciousness, nevertheless or because of that sometimes surprises happened.

Also the surroundings had changed noticeably. The house of the neighbors had decayed to a ruin. The firs in the garden of another one were no more, instead young cherry trees grew across.

The old woman noticed me and interrupted her work. "Can I help you?"

I pulled my thoughts together and noticed that I had stared around. "Oh ... ehm, no. I used to live here and wanted to see how it looks like today."

She stood there with a bended back, pressed a hand into the spine to fight the pain. For her age she seemed to be very good in shape. "That cannot be. I've always lived here."

"Then ... I probably made a mistake with the address. Sorry for the interruption."

I retreated, turned to leave, but she called: "Wait." She took off her garden gloves and came to me to the fence. For several moments she looked at my face - maybe she was short sighted - but there was no recognition. "What's your name?"

"Se-eldra Sadr'khor" I stated my new name.

"Hm, I've never heard that name before" she admitted. "Do you like to come in for a tea? Tell me about the house you're looking for, maybe I can help."

Tea, great. I hadn't had one for such a long time. Gratefully I accepted.

In the house the same feeling ruled, familiarity mixed with estrangement. The wallpaper now was painted in pastel pink. Half of the pictures had disappeared, leaving rectangular, bright stains on the walls. You could see the woman in different years with her daughter, her own parents, on birthdays, school enrollments, family celebrations. No one with her husband.

I looked closer at one of the photos. The girl, the daughter was pretty with her sapphire blue eyes and her golden brown hair, so conspicuously with her birthmark on her left cheek, that emphasized her beauty. Way too conspicuous. In contrast I looked into the mirror that also hung in the corridor. My face looked like nothing, perfectly symmetric, nothing special about that, so it was easy to forget - exactly as intended. The eyes were some undefined blue-gray-green, the hair something between blond and brown. The 21 years my documents claimed me to be seemed to be realistic. It could be five years more or less. If you would ask people how I looked like everyone would give a different description.

The woman noted that I had fallen behind. "My daughter Sara - she should be 51 by now, I celebrate her birthday every year. She disappeared many years ago, since then I never heard from her again. She often roamed around outside, so I hope somehow that she's still alive. That she will some day stand before my door. That she was on a long trip, got married, got children, maybe even grandchildren. That she just forgot to leave a message. So I cannot move away from here, or else she won't find me anymore." No, I wasn't fifty, but time was a strange thing in this universe.

I imagined how I rushed to her with a hug and how I told her everything, the whole story. But not even in a simulation I was crazy enough to tell someone, not even my mother, not Itsy. Nobody must ever know. It was bad enough that Optimus knew - an unlucky mistake.

At the edge of my consciousness I noted Itsy's voice from reality: "Mom? Are you alright? Are you leaving me alone?"

I return to reality, into my flat.

Itsy stands beside my smartphone that I gave him for training, so he can learn to connect to computers and how to control them.

I laugh helplessly. "But I'm here."

Itsy stays silent irresolutely. I have to think of the last few week that I laid in the space ship injured and half out of consciousness - that was actually the second time within a short time that Itsy was on his own. But my simulations are something different. He should learn that everything is alright, even if I lie around motionless for some minutes or hours.

"Do you want to see where I go?" I ask.

Itsy nodes in a cute way with his whole body.

I check that the curtains are closed opaque, then I expose my long, thin robot tail and let the tip split into finest wires. "I will connect my system at your neck to your system, in that way I can directly feed you sensory input. It will look as if we would be at another place, but in truth we are still here. Do you still want to?"

Itsy nods and makes an exited squeaking noise.

For familiarization in bring us to my home simulation as I call it.

We found ourselves at a beach. "Once I dreamed that the world was just an island, but I didn't want to believe that and went through the water. There I found the next island and the next one, finally I found this beach" I told the tale. "This place reminds me, that there is always something behind the horizon and there are always new things in life waiting to be discovered. Also that sometimes other people have no idea and say nonsense." I grinned.

Beside that it was a beautiful, relaxing place. Water painted in bright colors by the low hanging sun rolled onto white sand. The fog the sun shined through I filled with occasional input from reality, so while in the simulation I could still perceive my surroundings.

Itsy first looked at me with insecurity. Then he began to push the sand around. I caught the commands of his processor he sent to his pistons, so he could interact with the simulation.

I pointed to the water. "If I feel exceptionally down in the dumps, I drown myself in the sea. Afterwards my problems don't seem to be as bad anymore. You don't die in simulations."

Itsy played for a while with the sand, then he continued to look around. He looked inland. I picked him up, so he could see more.

At the beginning there had been nothing but a forest of black-burned trees and bushes. For a long time there also stood a metallic, shiny building with three towers pointing into different directions like a crystal.

"In the past I met Primus there, the god of Cybertronians" I explained. "But since I don't have the Allspark anymore, the building is empty." I could remove it from the simulation, but I have decided to keep it as a reminder.

Itsy didn't understand a word.

"I show you everything. Heads up, we change the place."

Now we stood in a city on Earth at the river, back at that fateful evening, the sky covered by dark clouds and the wind pulled on us. Above the buildings in front of us one cloud hung exceptionally low. You could see some thundering now and then. Sometimes the cloud exposed one or another battle robot, who instantly rushed back into the cloud, where the battle raged.

"Do you see them? There are Autobots and Decepticons fighting over the Allspark."

We watched them for a while. I engulfed in thoughts, until a movement in the corner of my eye raised my attention. With a loud splash it landed in the water.

Like at that day I searched the water with my eyes, but because of its weight it had sunken quickly. Minutes later the heavily damaged Autobot dragged himself to the riverside. I ran down the stairs to the water.

The Autobot saw me, stretched out an arm towards me. In the hand he hold a cube. "Please, help us. Bring this to Optimus Prime."

I put Itsy onto my shoulder to free my hands and took the Allspark. Fascinated I looked at the alien symbols on its surface.

"Run" the Autobot said and I already saw the threatening dark shadows of flying Decepticons steering above the water in our direction.

Instead I announced the next change of the place.

Now we stood on Cybertron - without the cube - at the edge of a road. This road was one of many that linked themselves to each other in the plain to a giant comb. At the corners buildings stood, the bars of the planet, that linked all levels of the comb structure with each other. You could look down to Cybertron's core if the air wasn't that polluted from countless fights.

"That's the planet of your ancestors" I explained to Itsy. "It is decayed, because it lacks the energy from the Allspark."

The city was an eerie sight. Stains of rust spread over roads and buildings. Damages from the fights had been partly covered with unfitting panels. At one place in the distance a road was completely rusted through, ripped off and bended down to the level below.

Itsy asked: "Are we going here?"

"No. I'm not liked there because of the case with the Allspark. The Decepticons say I had stolen it and Cybertron would decay, because I don't give it back. You can travel there on your own when you grew up."

I turned around and pointed to a small cabin, that was built outside at one of the buildings. "That's the lab, where the doctor tried to get the Allspark out of me. The walls there are still splattered with my blood, so we don't go there. Oh, in front of that M-426237 lies."

My subconsciousness surprisingly had placed my former overseer at the place before the lab, where I had last seen him. Thousand years it had took me to learn his name - how embarrassing. The orange Decepticon laid there on the ground without any movement.

I hesitated to give an explanation. "I brought him into some kind of simulation, where he hears a song. But I forgot to limit it."

I felt bad when I thought about what I had done to him. As a quasi-immortal machine he was damned to hear the same song over and over I had occupied his working memory with. For everyone else it seemed as if he was in a coma or stasis-lock, how it was called by Cybertronians. While alive he was lifeless. Maybe the others didn't even know what was wrong with him. He didn't deserve that.

I was not in the mood for simulations any more and I brought us back to reality.

In the flat I disconnect my tail tip from Itsy's system. "I show you the rest on another day, okay?" I retract myself in shame, hug my legs. Margret, M-426237, what have I done. I had panicked and lost control. That must not ever happen again. Now I cannot even return to Cybertron to fix my mistake and to release him from his world of terror.

Itsy who notices my discomfort crawls to my side and leans against me to offer me comfort.

On the next occasion I step into a kiosk, buy myself a post card and retreat into a corner to write. With the pen floating over the card I formulate the words in my head. Without name, but unique enough so the receiver will know. "Hello. I just wanted to say that I'm alive and I'm fine. Fine is relative. I got into some trouble and therefore I have to hide. I cannot come home and I couldn't contact you any sooner. That's the first and the last time that I write to you, because the risk is too high that I get caught because of that. Take care. I love you. P.S. Please keep this message to yourself."

But while the pen floats over the paper I lose courage. What if someone reads this who finds this weird? Why should I take the risk? My mother is a tattletale. She lasted all the decades until now, so she will continue to. If she is still alive and lives at the same address - which I would need to check first on an electronic way and which would leave more traced. If a machine being spotted me with my current identity - me, who 'stole' their Allspark, okay, bad luck, but that they discovered my former identity? That wasn't worth the risk.

Without doing anything I just let the post card there and leave the store.

At the door to my flat I take a look through the staircase and listen. Nobody is there, so I take Itsy, who I wear masked as a fat necklace, from my neck. That was the first thing I taught him before we entered civilization. "Open the door."

He has some difficulty and someone downstairs steps into the staircase, so I unlock the door myself and let Itsy continue to train from the inside. He puts in a lot of effort. I show him once, then he quickly figures it out.

When we are alone and undisturbed, Itsy asks: "What did you do in the store?"

"I wanted to write a post card to my mother, but I changed my mind."

That makes him curious. "Does she miss you? Don't you want to go back? Why don't you write an electronic message, wouldn't that be faster?"

I sigh. "Yes, she loved me very much. The other thing ... that is hard to explain. And dangerous. I'd rather not talk about that. But no, I cannot go back and I cannot write to her."

"If it kills you if you tell me I don't want to know." That's how nice he is, the small one.

I, for my part, decide to not visit simulations about my distant past anymore, so they won't wake up unfitting feelings.

Because there is only one thing in which I perform better than anybody else I get myself a well-paid job in a big IT company.

Half bored on my first day I let them show me the systems and explain them to me. Because I'm half a machine I know their workings as soon as I connect with them. But I cannot do that here.

As usual I carry Itsy with me as a necklace, so he can see and hear everything. After what I did I swore to myself to not leave him alone ever again. Or at least not without a good reason and work is not a good reason to leave a baby alone for hours.

Halfheartedly I set up my work place as an alibi and pretend to be busy, while I wait that the other ones leave the office. I consider it a waste of time to work with these stupid systems.

Around noon a snack cart drives through the office. I could go to the canteen on ground level, but I'm not ready to face the comments when I counter-order the raw salad sides. Maybe tomorrow.

The snack cart offers salad - no way. Sandwiches, nice with a lettuce leaf for the conscience - no. Tuna sandwich - the right thing to reminisce, but too bad I cannot eat that. Chocolate bars, wrapped in plastics and nearly sterile. I take one.

After that I look through my tickets, some easy to do tasks for the beginning. Within a few minutes I prepare them on my inner system and I don't feel challenged at all. I could do so many wonderful things for them. But I set myself a rule to hand over done tasks shortly before their due date to not raise any suspicion.

I take out my smartphone which I had bought as a crutch if I have to communicate electronically with the outer world and pretend to listen to music. One hand I hold at the keyboard and I look at the screen from time to time. In reality the plug of my headphones hangs loosely and the cable of the smartphone links to my chest, where it's connected to my inner system through the slit in my skin.

I try to make the smartphone receive Decepticon radio and to decrypt it. Too bad I don't have the program from Carla anymore and try to reconstruct it as a backup in case that my systems go offline, which has happened several times in the past. Receiving and displaying the signals is not a problem. But the decryption of the complex signals that partly cover each other in several threads causes some trouble. When I get bored of that I decide that it's fairly acceptable.

While I search the Internet for notifications about aliens, I look around in the office.

Some of the coworkers work in silence, others visit each other at their places to discuss tasks.

Sometimes I see people from the management going through the office, first of all the boss of the department. The boss is a good-looking man about thirty, cleanly shaved with perfectly waxed laid-back hair in a business suit. You could shoot a photo of him anytime to use it in a catalog or on our homepage.

"Are you coming to terms with your tasks?"

Startled I rush around. The coworker who showed me the place in the morning looks at my screen.

"Oh yes, yes." I rip out my headphones. "I'm still thinking about how to do the task before I start."

That is not a problem, is it?

She explains: "You can also access our systems per smartphone if you connect it to our internal Wi-Fi. Wait, let me show you how."

Yeah, cool, in this way I can copy the code from my internal system per Wi-Fi directly onto our servers. Not. While it sounds tempting this is too fast for me.

"Thanks." I pretend to get used to the new, mobile surface of the systems and plug in the headphones as a sign that I don't want to be disturbed.

I wait until the end of work. The same coworker visits me again to point out that it's not expected from me to work overtime on my first day. Then I wait until only one, two workaholics sit at the end of the open plan office, from where they cannot look at my place. I expose my tail, plug it into the computer and copy my completed tasks within a few fractions of a second. Then I get up and go on my way home.

That's how my work days go by. At the next day I always sit quietly at my place, upload the due tasks, copy comments and documentation to the places needed to simulate a normal working process. While I spend most of my time reading news in the Internet and searching pictures of web cams in the area for suspicious looking vehicles. I try to figure out where Autobots and Decepticons are currently staying, but except the official pictures where the Cybertronians step in front of cameras on purpose I don't find anything.

Oh, wait a second, there is a phone number of the government, where you can report "alien activities". Probably they talk about Decepticons. Then it's no wonder they're that peaceful in the radio - they're holding back.

At that moment the boss passes by, as I notice from the corner of my eye. Guilty I look up from my smartphone into his friendly smiling face, which seems unfitting to me. "Please come into my office."

Whoops, am I in trouble? Quickly I plug out my smartphone and follow him.

We take seat in front of each other. Guilty I make myself small and expect a reprimand for my way of working, but still he is smiling. "You completed ticket 3798 yesterday evening within half an hour. That is incredible. How did you do that?"

I try to remember and just look at him puzzled. Yesterday evening I worked on several tasks, but I didn't hand in any of them? Probably he talks about the one that is due tomorrow.

"That was due tomorrow, right?"

"The ticket was passed around for months, because nobody had time to take care of that. We didn't expect you to manage that."

"Ehm, sorry?" I will remember to question the due date when I receive a task.

Gently he shook his head. "Don't be shy. It looked as if you wouldn't do anything all day long, so I checked your activities. You must be something like a genius, but you need silence to concentrate, am I right? That reminds me of myself in the past. Terrible all that noise in the open plan office, all the time someone is staring at your screen."

I force myself to calm down and silently thank him for the idea. "Yes, I don't like it when others watch me while I'm working."

He nods friendly. "You can come later to the office in the morning if you cannot concentrate anyway. The main thing is that the work gets done."

I thank him, but I probably won't use the option. No idea how I could better spend my time at home. In the office I have high speed Internet and can do whatever I want.

The boss points to my necklace. "Is that from your boyfriend?"

I'm slightly confused. Me and a relationship, tch, never in my life. But you don't see that looking at me. Silently I shake my head.

He continues: "Would you join me for dinner today evening?" When my eyes wondering slide down to the wedding ring on his hand he adds: "Let's talk about your way of working. Maybe we find more things that we have in common and how we can optimize the processes."

"Okay." If it's purely business I don't see any problem. Although the question about my boyfriend leads to another conclusion.

"Thanks. That's all I wanted."

He dismisses me and I go back to my working place.

Even before end of work the boss picks me up from my working place, so I don't have time to work on my new tasks, but he says that I already completed so much this week that I don't need to think about that.

Shortly before we leave the building I put on my hood.

When I notice that the boss stops and looks at me questioning I blush in embarrassment. "I don't like it if other people look at me." In reality it's in case someone roams around nearby who knows my face. The city is full of cars and on every corner there are surveillance cameras mounted. With the hood I minimize the risk to be spotted by coincidence.

"As you like. If you feel better with that." He seems to slowly get used to my originalities.

He drives me in his Porsche to a restaurant slightly out of the way, but high class, where I feel out of place with my business casual look and my fat necklace, but nobody else minds me. Far away from any surveillance camera and the turbulences of the streets I take off my hood. At the entrance a waiter greets me politely and guides us to our table.

When I study the menu, I'm slightly overcharged. You don't see how much everything is cooked.

Steak, hm. Would it be a problem if it would just be medium? Better not take a risk. Maybe I just take a portion of noodles.

I ask the waiter: "Is it sided with a raw salad? Then without that one for me, please. I must only eat well-cooked stuff." He smiles friendly. Salad comes with every dish.

"Do you like some wine with that?"

"No thanks, I don't tolerate any alcohol. Only water, please." Oh Primus. This is embarrassing to make all those special requests. Why did I agree?

My boss orders a steak and a glass of red wine and closes the menu. "Good. Then tell me, how do you work? How do you proceed when writing code?"

"Wait, I can show you."

In my imagination everything sounds logical. Let's see if he also sees it. I take out my smartphone. One of the programs I worked on yesterday I show as a signal pattern and zoom out.

"Here. This code section connects to the database and requests some customer data. You probably split the task into several steps until you can write down the command for every step, correct? But look at it like this. See here in the signal, the establishing of the connection looks like a handshake. The database here looks like a key hole. The code produces a signal that fits like a key into the key hole, do you see that?" I wave with the phone in front of his face and wipe to the next view. "Here the representation of the data, it looks like building blocks, like weirdly shaped Lego bricks. No, like Tetris blocks. Like a mix of Lego and Tetris. And the request shows how they need to be build together. Do you see that? Do you see that?"

The boss looks at the screen with fascination. But in his smile I don't see any recognition. Disappointed I finally retreat the smartphone.

He asks: "So that is some kind of synesthesia? You see pictures when you see code?"

"No, just look here." I move my finger around the shape of the key. "Here is the key. Look closely."

I don't know what to say. That is no syne-something. The signal really has shapes.

But he just shakes his head, friendly and not-comprehending. He continues: "Fascinating. I imagine that a Transformer would work like you do."

He takes my hand and I feel his warm flesh while he feels mine. My disguise is perfect. But I don't know what this gesture is suppose to mean. Besides, I'm still slightly upset that he doesn't understand me and this mix of feelings and signals confuses me.

"Ehm, maybe you just ask one if he wants to work for you?"

"That's not possible after what has happened in Chicago."

I look at him not comprehending. Before I can raise a follow-up question, he adds: "Oh, in Chicago there was an attack of the Transformers. Last year, didn't you hear about that?"

Flustered I pull back my hand and smile apologizing. "In that time I didn't hear anything outside of my world of books."

"You don't need to be shy. We can talk about everything. Here."

He takes out his business card, writes something down on it and slides it to me over the table.

"That's my private number. If you need anything, someone to talk to, you may call me anytime. Anytime."

"Thanks". I throw it a glance when something important hits my mind. "Oh, I ... I don't speak on the phone. I can write you a message if that is okay."

He looks at me again slightly estranged. "Some things can easier be clarified in a talk. Are you sure?"

I blush and get angered about myself that I raised that topic. "You may send me voice messages, if that's easier for you, but I don't speak on the phone. Please accept that."

"Fine." He shrugs. Then he stops as if he just got an idea. "Are you scared that you are listened in? From the government or a secret service? I have special connections. If it helps you I make some calls."

"No thanks, that's not it."

He seems to be slightly confused. He tries to understand my behavior, but the only explanation that is left is that it's some kind of quirk.

When the waiter clears away the empty plates he offers dessert: chocolate mousse.

"Yes, please." I beam with pleasant anticipation.

But my boss asks: "Was that made with raw eggs?"

Oh, damn. I didn't think of that.

The waiter confirms.

"Then for my companion the home-made waffles with warm chocolate sauce, please."

When the waiter left, I say: "Thanks. You saved my life."

"What would happen if you would eat that?"

"I was serious."

Embarrassed silence spreads. Okay, in case of an emergency I could get to a hospital, but that would clear the way for other ways to die. I have nothing to add.

The tasty waffles raise my mood.

After dinner he offers me to drive me home, but I decline thankfully.

"It's too dark and dangerous outside. I have to insist to drive you home. If not, then at least let me call a taxi for you."

Oh Primus, that's awkward. I don't want him at my home. Also not in front of my door.

"Then just take me back to the office. I would've walked from there anyway."

I mean, I would've used public transportation.

He consults the map on his navigation system. "That's a detour. To your home it's shorter."

"Okay." I surrender. But he must not enter my flat.

Luckily he is a complete cavalier and doesn't ask me for that. He wishes me a good night and lets me out before my front door.

I ask loudly: "How do you like him?" I live in an area that doesn't have the best reputation. At night rarely someone is roaming around. The rent is cheap.

My necklace answers in Cybertronian language, which would sound like background noises to other people. "I don't like him." Hard to say if it's because of personal reasons or if it's because of the anticipation that all Decepticons possess.

"I don't know if he is just friendly or if he wants to get laid with me."

"What's getting laid?"

Whoops. "I tell you when you grew up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually I wanted that Seldra goes home alone, so like in the horror cliche things happen, but the boss didn't allow it. Too bad, no action here. I need to make up something else.


	2. Alien Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra spots some strange happenings and informs the government about them.

Because my boss agrees that I complete my real work after the end of working time, I sit at my table and look through the freely available surveillance cameras: weather cameras, insecure private cameras, whatever I find.

At most I'm interested in the ones that show any kinds of vehicles. I look out for other members of my species to stay out of their way, but the resolution is too bad to see insignias, and other features? Hm, of course no-one transforms in front of a running camera, especially because it's currently overall peaceful in the world. And if someone hides here, then he adapts so well to the behavior of usual vehicles that I don't spot anything remarkable. I have barely any experience in distinguishing Cybertronians from real vehicles.

Additionally I search for some newspaper articles about Chicago. The city was completely destroyed and I find some pictures that show the silhouettes of Cybertronians from far away, so the case is clear for me: My Decepticon friends had redecorated a city again. No wonder that they stay hidden.

Shortly before the last employees leave the office - it is already night - a movement on one of the cameras grabs my attention.

It's the private camera of someone - let me check - who lives in one of the richer districts and monitors his garden.

The twilight is too dark to see it clearly, but I see something big running on four legs rushing through the bushes. It runs to a place at the fence, where I note its long tail, then it leaves the picture with a jump over the fence.

What I saw there looks like me in my Cybertronian mode - the long ankle joints, the long structured tail. The way it runs.

That doesn't need to mean a thing. There are not many ways to run on four legs effectively.

But the size, the structured tail, that doesn't look like a creature from Earth. Maybe it's a Cybertronian in animal mode. I don't see another option.

But what kind of animal is that supposed to represent? That's no fitting disguise for this place.

I take out my smartphone and copy a photo of that being onto it, to pass my observation to that phone number, where you could report alien activity. But wait a second. I shouldn't make the mistake and rattle out a Decepticon. Although color and body type look more Decepticon-like. But I don't see an insignia or red optics. I don't see any eyes at all. Also it makes more of an organic impression to me. Maybe it's a type I haven't seen before or a member of another fraction.

So I quickly look around in the office that nobody pays me any attention, then I lift my necklace and whisper to Itsy: "Send that picture to the Decepticons. Ask them who that is." Then I hold him my smartphone so he can grab the picture.

Itsy sends the photo to the general Decepticon radio channel. "Radio" of course is a general term. It's wireless, but anything can be transmitted over it. I could even stream a live video before the transmission rate roasts my brain.

Although it's fairly quiet in the channel we instantly receive an answer, which supports me in my impression that there are more Cons listening than sending.

"And you are who?" I don't know that signature. I look on my phone, but the symbols my translator displays confuse me even more.

Itsy answers: "Itsy."

"Never heard. Who are you?"

Questioning the necklace turns into my direction. "What does he want from me?"

I answer: "He wants to know your status."

Itsy sends: "I'm a civilian and have no rank."

With a pounding heart I ask myself if I made a mistake. Will they wonder where Itsy comes from? Actually it's not possible that they know all member of their species. It's not unusual that they get offspring.

The next message luckily sounds fairly friendly: "Stay away from trouble, little one."

"Yes, Sir."

"Don't send that much or else the humans detect you. Change your position."

"Quiet so, Sir."

Whew. With that they're cool.

But nobody has ever seen that being. "That's no-one of us."

"Send a request to Undertraan for identification if you want to know for sure." I have no idea what they're talking about. Now several of them start to send mixed up.

"Don't you have anything better to do? It's organic, that's easy to see. Don't waste your capacities."

"If you would 'waste' your capacities more often with research you knew that small details can change everything."

In the discussion we started I get confused with keeping track of who sends what.

"Little one. Whatever you do. Make sure that your weapons have an effect before you attack. It looks armored."

"Are you crazy? Didn't you see the signature? Hey little one, ask your parents for fire protection."

"That was what I meant."

Obviously they addressed Itsy with "little one". He just replies to all messages with: "Yes, Sir." It confuses me that they call him "little one". Either they identify him as protoform or they translate his name.

At least now it's clear that no-one of them bothers if the government eliminates it. I send the photo with position and the link to the camera to the alien report number.

On the way from the office to my home I keep one eye on the cameras near that area. I watch two incidents.

First: I see the critter again. It moves quickly, runs left and right, somehow ... excited. Suddenly ... it jumps backwards and a bright spot appears on its chest. It drops down - blood? The critter falls to the ground. Shortly after it starts to dissolve. I stare at the picture with open mouth, so that some passengers on my way home wonder what's wrong with me, but I notice nothing of what happens around me. Like from acid the critter dissolves until there is nothing left. Nothing, not even the slightest trace, not even a puddle is left.

Second: Later in the evening when I'm already home I see on the cameras near the place where I saw that being how a SUV drives close. Three men get out. They go to the fence, one of them holds something in his hands which he points into all directions - a Geiger counter? Finally he shakes his head to the two others and they drive off. Seriously?? Those dicks didn't even look closely. Maybe they could've found traces.

Shortly after I receive a message from a suppressed number. "We went into the matter and couldn't find anything. Probably it was a picture error. Please note that false reports are punished."

False report? False report?? I'm insulted. With no word I claimed it was a Cybertronian.

Because there's no one else, I go by myself to check out that place.

Soon I reach the respective garden and take out my smartphone to light up the ground near the fence. The being left some noticeable claw tracks when it jumped over the fence.

Then I run to the place where I last saw the being. The grass at that position is damaged - around a patch of bare ground the blades are strangely curved severed, like irregularly singed off, but without coaled edges. First I take a photo of that, just in case I dare a second try to report that case to the government.

The ground around that place is too compact to see any tracks there. To find out where the critter came from I need to improvise. With the smartphone I download a map of the city and copy it onto my inner system, where I mark the place where I saw the being on the camera and where it died, also the routes where I know it went along.

Interesting. It searched or scouted the area systematically. When I calculate where it started its search ... I stand at the end of the road in front of a gully cover, but this is a special gully.

This one open, the cover pushed aside.

Shall I or shall I not?

I retreat onto my inner system, summon a simulation and play through all possible events fast forward, with all parameter combinations for circumstances unknown to me. Probability that it's the only one of its kind: 10%. Probability that in foreseeable time another one appears here: 5%. Probability that I'm attacked here: 2%. But that I have to transform in case of an attack: 80%. My human flesh shields off my energon signature - when I transform it won't do so anymore and I would bring the government on my trace. Contrary in the sewers the ground shields off my energon signature, nothing else happens.

Two options crystallize: Either I go home and forget about that thing. Or I scout the sewers.

I think back to my everyday life in the office, the tasks there that I finish in no time and then I'm bored and look through the cameras to search for danger. I imagine how I stop that. I put my machine abilities on ice. I will work on my tasks with a normal human speed, tasks, that solve insignificant problems of other humans, too unimportant as if one Cybertronian would ever waste the slightest addition on it. What, you have to install drivers? Issue certificates? Replace protocols? Why so intricate, just do the thing.

No. As much as I wished to return to the humans I never wished to be bored and to spend every day with Sisyphus's work. Someday again it will burn in my spark and the machine will crave for a fight, for an adventure. I want to know what lies behind that horizon.

I take off my necklace. While I put it down, Itsy transforms to his mobile mode.

"Itsy, I want you to wait here outside for me. Hide in the bushes."

I'm about to turn to leave when Itsy jumps at me and claws halfway transformed to my neck. "No!"

A bit upset I fiddle around my neck. It has never occurred before that he disobeyed one of my orders. With resistance Itsy lets me loose. I hold him on my palms to talk to him. "What's wrong with you? It's dangerous down there for a protoform like you."

"I don't want you to leave me behind."

For a moment I have a flashback to the ugly-ass planet, where I pulled Itsy out of my spark. There I ... I left him behind. Twice, to be specific. Does he remember?

Quickly I dive back into my simulations, this time I check what can happen if I take Itsy with me. On my shoulder: It's dark and we lose each other in the fight. As necklace - he hinders my transformation. In the space directly beneath the slit in my chest, where the metal comes out when I transform. It's not more then a one inch gap between my spark and the parts above that, where I store small items, usually a screwdriver. I call it my hammer-space. If I put Itsy there I need to be careful when transforming, but I'm used to that.

"I don't have time for discussions" I decide. "Okay, but you go into the hammer-space, there you're save. You're quiet and you don't move."

Itsy agrees. I open my top, open the slit on my chest with one hand and put Itsy who makes himself as small as possible into the space above my spark, then I let the slit fall shut. It's so tight that Itsy cannot move and I feel him as a light pressure in my chest.

Finally I can look around and carefully listening I climb down into the manhole.

It's pitch black and nothing is to be heard. I take out my smartphone and light up the corridor. I stand on a narrow ledge, who leads on this side along the wall of the tunnel, beside that pitch black, badly smelling water flows. On the ground I spot the scratch marks of big claws in the slimy substance that covers the way.

I follow the traces in the corridor, shielding off the lamp to the front with my hand. Although I'm half a machine I neither have night vision nor thermal image and I need to rely on my usual human sight. However, I use my abilities and draw a map of the way I'm taking and match it with the city map, so I know exactly where I am. Would the light go out I could generate a simulation from the corridors I know and feed it directly into my optic nerve, in this way it was as if I could see in the dark - at least regarding the surroundings.

At one corner - crossing I mean, as I realize when I light around - I hear a screech from afar and transform. I know exactly how long the men took from my message until they arrived at the place. Over there through the gully cover some of my radiation should penetrate to the outside. I spend some time here, then I will disappear before they come here and they will look closer and spot the critters, if they don't act too stupid.

Too bad my claws are not made for gripping. A series of clicking noises behind me is enough to distract me so that my smartphone slips out of my claws and keeps lying with the light to the top. Stupid robot body. Except for running around it's good for nothing.

Just when I bend down to pick it up, a luminous projectile flies over my head and hits the wall across with a loud explosion.

In an escape reflex I leave the smartphone where it is and jump into the water.

My bot mode is not made for swimming. I paddle loudly and clumsy to the other side, where I cling to the edge and look around, ready to instantly disappear into the water if another light flash appears. At least the metal protects my human flesh from this broth - yuck.

I don't see anything, but after a while I hear the steps of quiet soles - feet no, claws. That's someone else. I stay quietly where I am and try not to move, to not make any noise.

Then a person steps into the light of my smartphone and looks down curiously. I guess he looks for traces of my blood. No, is that an athletic human who wears a mask, that is now illuminated by my smartphone?

He looks around - I guess that he has night vision, because he roams around here without light. The faceless look of his helmet moves over me. How curious. He must have seen me or else he wouldn't have shot at me in the dark that unerringly.

He bends down, reaches out his hand for my smartphone. Oh no, you don't. With one leap I drag myself up, with a second I jump with my long ankle joints in my bot mode behind the person - directly onto my shoes that I lost with the transformation and tumble clumsily, which gives him time to react and to take out a weapon.

I cannot recognize the shape of what he's holding, maybe some kind of knife. We stare at each other. To be specific: I stare at him, while his head twitches unsettled, the arm with the weapon halfway lifted. He must see my shiny surface in the light of the lamp. Why is he doubting?

Finally he decides to attack me. I dodge below the swing and think: Not this way.

The tip of my tail rushes up to his neck, pierces it from behind. The tip splits into finest ends, that make contact with each single nerve to interrupt the forwarding to the brain - at least that is the plan, but the nervous system is strange. Somehow the nerves work differently.

I don't have time. When I get the thought: That's no human, that is some kind of alien - he swings for my tail, which I loose from his neck in time, so the sharp blade scratches over the metal and he throws it to the side - no idea if it can cut metal, I don't wanna know.

I retreat back, stab his chest multiple times with my tail tip in high succession, but he wears some kind of chest armor that blocks my attacks. So I let my last attack recoil on purpose, grab my smartphone from the ground with the tip of my tail clinging it to the port and hit the road.

But the joy doesn't last for long. Although in my quadrupedal mode I can run fast, but the alien stays close with inhuman speed - how inconvenient that I don't see for how long the corridor leads straight. I stop, throw myself on the ground - the alien notices it too late, stumbles over me and when he catches himself I jump to the other side of the channel.

I have an idea. It seems he has problems to see me, especially when I don't move, why ever. I cannot see him either - I switched off the smartphone - that's somehow fair.

I hear how he looks around quietly, then he jumps to my side of the channel, probably that's where he heard me at last. His steps pass me by below me. One of the rare advantages of my machine body are the exceptional climbing abilities, which I had to acquire in the abysmal depth of Cybertron due to the lack of flying skills.

He searches the route several times stopping from time to time - probably listening and looking around - but I stay vanished. Because in the darkness I cannot aim I resign from further surprise attacks.

Finally I hear how he jumps back to the other side and follows the way of the other critter, whose traces I followed before.

Well, my need for excitement is stilled for today. I jump back to "my" channel side, transform back - hello smell, welcome back - and go on my way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's suspiciously convenient that the living area is full of cameras, so Seldra can see everything. I would remove that to make it more realistic, but in this way I can better show the reader what's going on there. There are already enough things happening off-screen to cause confusion.


	3. The Long Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra messes with Xenomorphs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning: Facehuggers doing Facehugger stuff. Choking and mouth-raping and things the like. Gore, Self Harm. Kinda. It's with a good intent. This is a story with Xenomorphs, no idea what else you were expecting.

On one hand the boss is very obliging and attentive. At the beginning of lunch break once he says: "Across in a side street there is a shop with good vegetable boxes and stews. You may want to check it out" just as the snack cart rolls in which I watch with hungry eyes.

The vegetables are well cooked and I can ease my hunger without worries.

On the other hand he sends these mixed signals I don't know how to understand. Like he winks to me as if we would share a dirty secret. Maybe I should ask openly what his wife thinks about that.

But the answer becomes clear when he calls me once in the middle of the night and wakes me up. I pick up the phone - without anything. He's informed. "I'm sorry to disturb you that late, but please come to the office immediately. We have a problem. Call yourself a taxi and bring me the bill."

I hang up and tiredly blink to the clock. Two. Quarter an hour later I stand on the doormat and ring, but the building is closed and I need to take a detour through the subterranean garage that seems to be like died out at that time, while my steps echo from the concrete.

The boss and two of my coworkers are already there.

"What's the matter?" I ask.

The boss stares at his screen with full concentration - he borrowed this work place in the open-plan office, so he can better co-ordinate the work with the coworkers. I've never seen him that serious before. "We got a worm in the network. Every time we clear one system he reappears somewhere else. Can you help us?"

"Yes" I answer.

Nothing happens. The other two coworkers look shortly to me, wait for a reaction.

Then the boss understands what I mean. "Go into my office. Close the shutters and lock the door. The key is on the inside."

Unhurried I go to his office and make myself at home.

Actually I wanted to take care of that, but the opportunity is too good. I take off my necklace and put Itsy beside the computer under the table.

"Time for some training, precious one."

Itsy transforms. "What is a worm?"

"A program that spreads itself on its own and causes damage. Don't worry, you will handle it fine."

"What if I break something?"

"It's already broken."

You cannot argue with that.

Itsy transforms a little leg and plugs it into the USB port. I expose my tail and also connect it to the computer, to better watch what he's doing.

But Itsy doesn't need my help. Instinctively he finds the copies of the worm and eliminates them, while he takes care that they don't spread. Within a few minutes the work is done.

I thank the small robot and put him back as a necklace around my neck.

When I come back to the open space, the two coworkers stare at me with big eyes. The boss sits there and breathes in relieve. "Thanks, Miss Sadr'khor. That was help in the last second. Just go home, we'll clean up a bit."

"Does that happen more often?" I ask.

"Only once every few months." The boss gives me a painful smile.

I wish them all a good rest of the night. The coworkers stare at me not comprehending when I leave the office. Although I didn't do anything.

I just step into the topmost level of the subterranean garage from the staircase, go some steps, the heavy door falls close behind me.

Then before me this black alien critter steps between the pillars onto my path. Oh, shit.

It doesn't see me yet, but it will as soon as I do anything flashy.

Slowly I take out my smartphone. The alien turns away from me, fairly slowly, scouts the area. I take a picture and send it to my boss: "Don't come into the subterranean garage!"

Finally I got a picture proof for the government, so they will finally take action. But before that I need to get out of here. Without a word I put Itsy into the hammer space and take off my shoes while I look around for surveillance cameras.

My phone vibrates when the boss sends me an answer. The alien lifts its head hearing the noise and turns around.

With a hiss it jumps towards me.

I turn around and run.

I just rip open the heavy door to the staircase when I duck my head and its tail tip pounds into the wall, where I just was and I slip through the door.

In the staircase there are no cameras.

I'm smaller than it and the alien has to open the heavy door a bit wider for itself, that gives me some seconds of time. I transform and climb half jumping down in the middle between the stairs.

At the bottom I transform again - I need my human hands to manipulate the door handle or something else my claws are too stiff for - open the door and slip through, look around for cameras.

Here are some deposit rooms and supply tunnels. No cams.

"So, you ugly-ass critter. Come here, nobody interrupts us." The alien pushes itself through the door.

I transform again and put myself into position. The input of my optics is directly transmitted to my system for analysis, so I can calculate the paths of its attacks beforehand and can dodge them.

The tail tip of the alien shoots to me. I just turn a bit and it slips off my case instead of cutting into my soft flesh. Two, three times it tries, then it realizes that it has no effect, runs around indecisive and hisses at me angrily.

Cool idea, I think. I can do that, too.

I look for a point at his upper body that looks soft and let my own tail tip shoot forward. It pierces its skin, seeps deep into its flesh and comes out at its back. Green blood flows out.

In the same moment a burning sensation flows trough the metal of my tail and it dissolves at the place just before the alien body. Shocked I stare at the corroded end. The tail tip on its back falls down to the ground half dissolved.

To lose some metal is not a problem, my machine body reabsorbs more metal afterwards until the lost is compensated for. According to the priority I care the least for losing my weapons, they are not good for anything anyway. The second least I care for my jet engines. Only if I lose more important parts, parts of my case and everything except the thin walled hollow bodies of my bones and organs, the very least needed to keep my human body alive, then I start to have problems.

The alien is as surprised as me - and on top of that stricken by pain - as me and blenches screeching. Its blood drops hissing onto the ground and eats holes into it. Instantly it comes after me in anger - a second mouth shoots out of its first one and slips off my case with no effect. However, with its attack some drops of its blood splash around and hit my case.

I turn around and run. While running I loose great parts of my case and throw them away, to stop the spreading of the acid.

Half naked as strange chimera I run down the corridor. Behind me I hear steps and the screeching of the alien that follows me. If I run away for long enough it will probably die from blood loss. Maybe I can help it with that.

Left and right doors branch off, but are they locked or open? It's risky to have a look. Whatever, I dare to try.

Spontaneously I stop, transform, turn the knob with my human hands - locked.

I transform, run further in bot mode. Shit, the alien is close behind me.

Ahead at a t-crossing I pretend to run left and run right instead, that gives me some yards of additional distance.

The corridor ends there with a double door with a knob. While braking I transform and within the movement I pull at the door, duck down, slip through the gap in the door while the alien bumps above me against the door.

Here some rows of shelves are standing, through which I can see another exit behind them at the other wall. Behind me the alien pushes itself into the room. Hm, shall I run around it or right through it?

I transform, jump in bot mode to the shelves, climb up. The alien critter reacts too late, bumps against the first shelf that tips over, hits the second row. Beneath my feet the shelves tip over like domino stones. I jump with big leaps over them, down on the other side, transform, pull at the door and slip through just before the last row of shelves bumps the door close and blocks it with their weight.

My heart beats like stupid. Through the door I hear the alien critter screech and rumble. Here it's dark and I know this smell well. I take out my smartphone and light up the stone stairs that lead down to the sewers. Although far away from the section I know, but it shouldn't be too hard to find another exit.

I decide to follow the corridor at the bottom end of the stairs to the right and light up the way while I keep drawing my map. Far away I hear screeches echoing through the tunnels, but because of the echo I cannot say from which direction. Everything is alright, don't panic. As long as I don't hurt them they're not that dangerous and I can avoid them. Hm, when I think harder about that: I need to see them to avoid them, but in bot mode with my claws I cannot really hold my smartphone, my only source of light. The best is I hurry up and find an exit before they find me.

Before me I see something big rushing through the light. It stops, turns his long, eyeless head to me and screeches. Then it disappears into a corridor. Somewhere behind me another critter answers with screeches.

I stand there like turned to stone, try to calm down. That was creepy. I expected it to attack me. As a precaution I follow the corridor where it came from, not the one it disappeared into.

I barely went some steps when I hear screeching close behind me and turn around. There it is again and jumps towards me.

From the mouth of the alien a smaller one shoots out and snaps at me. I scream, fall to the ground out of shock and hold the smartphone with its light far away, out of the range of danger. The alien critter follows me. To my right hand the wall disappears into darkness - a corridor - I roll into that direction and drag myself up while running away, moving backwards while feeling the wall.

The alien makes a leap into my direction and screeches, but it doesn't really want to follow me, so I hold my hands out before me in a soothing gesture and keep retreating. "Everything is fine, I just leave, okay?"

It takes some steps backwards and disappears.

How curious. Probably I entered its ground which just ends here, or else I don't have any explanation for that.

I turn around to follow this corridor, then I realize that I stand in a small room, where there are some stairs that lead to a bricked door. This room contains an accumulation of objects.

My pulse slowly calms down. It's quiet. The objects here are round, organic, clearly egg-shaped. Around me some of them open in triangular lobes.

Maybe I rightly got the name "mother of Decepticons". Fear vanished from me. I lift myself up and curiously look from the top into one of the eggs, where just a tail disappears into the depth of its inner life - all I can think is: alien babies. How cute. One will stand, one will fall and others move up.

Then something jumps into my face and clings to my head. My smartphone falls down. The tail of the critter slings around my neck, chokes me and makes me rattle, with this it forces a fleshy tube into my mouth.

I changed my mind: Not cute.

Something is not right. This alien parasite thing takes my breath away, but my hibernation system shuts down my metabolism and prevents me from suffocating. Probably everyone else would have fallen into a merciful unconsciousness, but I stay fully aware. I feel every slightest movement of the fleshy tube in my mouth, down my throat into my chest. Dis-gus-ting. No idea, what it does there, I don't actually wanna know. How do I get out of here?

The being completely covers my face, so I don't see anything. I try to loose it from me, but then it clings its slim legs even harder to me.

I have to retch and I need to suppress the stimulus with my hibernation system.

I feel around blindly. My fingers touch the other eggs and quickly I retreat in fear an alien critter could bite them. On the ground I feel for my smartphone, which I find nearby.

I consider my options: If I take a video with my smartphone, I could send it to my inner system and watch it, but I don't want to announce my presence here by the transmission. The phone cannot send blindly, so I would need to give the command. At least I take a photo roughly in the direction of the eggs and one from the being in my face.

Taking out Itsy so he can lead me outside is too dangerous.

And even without him: What if I meet that hunter alien outside, that tracked down the critter last time, so helplessly as I am at the moment?

Maybe it's the best to wait here. At least the parasite doesn't really try to kill me and I can stay for a long time in hibernation. To distract me from the thing in my mouth I spend the time with simulations on my inner system.

Indeed the parasite lets go of me at some point and falls to the ground lifelessly. I take out my smartphone - it stays dead. So I drag out a cable from my chest and connect it to recharge, then I have light again and light up the parasite. I poke it with a finger - it is dead. Looking at it I feel victorious - Ha, take that, I've got the longer breath.

But something else is also wrong. Breathing is hard for me. My sensors report some kind of foreign object in my lungs. I bet my spark that the parasite laid an egg inside of me. Disgusting. My trachea somehow feels abused.

I take care of that later. Now it's time to get away from here.

I leave this room, where the eggs are located. In the darkness I hear steps of the aliens and quickly turn to the other direction, but they're fast in catching up with me. I start to run, nearly bump into a wall and spin around without orientation. Before I find the way forward one of the beings is close before me and hisses - not aggressively like the last one, somehow curious, but still creepy. I push myself to the wall and turn my face away from its breath.

It comes so close that I can feel my own warmth reflected from its head.

Then it retreats.

My heart rushes and I realize that I held my breath out of fear.

I don't understand anything at all, but as long as I get out of here I'm fine with that.

Half feeling through the corridors, half using the weak light for orientation and sometimes accessing any plans when I have reception under a gully cover, working myself forward. The same thing happens two more times: aliens come to me - I hold still - they come very close to my face and then run away.

I suppose that they leave me alone because of the egg in my lungs. Interesting.

Soon, far away I finally find an exit I can reach with human climbing abilities and greedily breath the dirty air of the city.

Finally at home I lock my apartment's door, but remembering the acid blood of the aliens it doesn't make me feel save. It feels more like I block my own escape route.

First I take out Itsy of the hammer space and lacking a better option I put him on the kitchen table.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

I search through my cupboards. Actually there is not much to search through. Since my time on Cybertron where I had nothing, absolutely nothing that I could call my own and learned to get along with that, I can barely enjoy the luxury of civilization. I ask myself constantly what I need all that stuff for, normal humans fill their life with.

It would be a good idea to store some resources. I find a kitchen knife that is left from the one who previously lived in this flat. I have to improvise the rest.

I grab Itsy and take him with me into the bathroom. "I need light and a mirror. Can you transform for me?"

No, he cannot, we have to train that at the next occasion. In the bathroom I screw out a light bulb from the mirror illumination and give it to him, then I smash one of the three mirrors in the cupboard and hand him a shard. In my mind I take a note to feed him some silver so the next time he can do it by himself and I need to get a smaller light bulb for him that he can carry around.

"Itsy, please look away. I need to so something disgusting."

My plan says to lay myself into the bath tube, so my blood can siphon. Itsy places himself at the shower head holder and needs a series of instructions, before I can see the slit on my chest in the shard of the mirror.

From metal of my body I form a simple screw-wrench and my famous alien screwdriver. I clamp the screw-wrench into the slit to keep it open.

Although I can transform my body at a whole, but that happens automatically without me deciding which parts are involved how. For this control over the details I need the screwdriver.

I open some panels, of whatever that parts are good for. On one hand my machine parts are grown more or less naturally and in the chaos of the small parts I cannot make out their functions. On the other hand because of the limited space within my body all technology grew filigree, circuits and other parts that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

But I can roughly see the lungs, that are transformed from the direction of my heart, no idea which purpose these metallic shiny clumps now serve. My right lung is still mostly human and lifts and lowers itself rhythmically. That's where the alien parasite settled in.

I shut down the pain sensation of my human flesh with the help of my hibernation system, but I cannot do anything against the look. I have to do a horrible thing to myself.

I open the right lung at its machine side, there I see it, the ugly critter, how it made itself at home at the lower end in a sphere of slime like in a morbid amnion.

For a while I stare at it and think. Shit, that doesn't work this way. How do I get it out? I will not touch it for sure.

I close everything, remove the screw-wrench, then I form a long, thin pair of tongs from the metal of my body, before I start again to open everything. This time everything looks a little bit different.

I shouldn't use up too much metal. If I make a mistake I'd rather have the acid blood hit that instead of my human flesh.

Carefully I grab the parasite sphere, which softly gives in, with the tongs, until they reach the small body within. Alarmed it moves.

I panic, freeze, watch it for some seconds and hope that it calms down. Shit, I'm scared it will break out any moment and jump into my face, or worse, as if it would eat through the rest of my lungs.

When it's quiet for some moment in the slime sphere I decide for another tactic.

With the blade I move around the sphere. The slime threads that hold the clump in place get loose. Too bad the knife is straight and the sphere is round. I don't reach the other side.

I have to change my tactic again.

Because at the moment I cannot breath, I just take a meditative break and make myself ready for everything that could happen. If it jumps into my face - well, I will transform and throw it away before it hurts me. If it attacks my lungs - no idea what happens then. Then I have to spend the rest of my life in bot mode when I don't need oxygen. Bye, lungs, we had a nice time.

First I cut open the slime ball until I have free access to the parasite. Which I grab tightly with the tongs. It flounces and fights against the grasp. My sensors report pain signals of my lungs and I hope it will survive.

I move the knife around the parasite, destroy the slime ball as far as I dare, carefully to not injure the small body, while I slowly drag on it, to note the resistance where I need to cut next.

With one final pull I drag the alien out and see how red blood gathers in the remnants of the slime ball. Whoops, I guess that was the cord.

Don't panic, don't panic I tell myself, but I'm panicking, shit, I will bleed to death, I will fall unconscious.

"Itsy, bring me the toilet paper, this instant!" Because my lungs are not available right now I use my voice processor.

Itsy jumps up. Lacking a better option I drop the knife and stuff toilet paper into the lung to suck up the blood.

Thereby I drop the alien parasite behind the edge of the bath tube and it runs around in the bathroom. I don't have time for that at the moment.

Itsy stands indecisively on the edge of the bath tube, waiting for further instructions.

"I'm fine. Look away. Stay away from the alien."

I turn down my pulse. Wait until the paper soaked, then I replace it. It bleeds again. Shit, I'm not educated for this crap.

It takes a while for the bleeding to decline and I let a clump of fresh toilet paper in the lungs before I close everything. Carefully I try to breath and the foreign object stimulates me to cough, which I suppress with some effort. So, only slightly breathing.

Weakly I get up while I get hold at the edge of the bath tube. Colorful stains fly in front of my eyes. What a dirtiness, the bath tube is full of bloody toilet paper, which I just threw to my feet.

With one hand I grab Itsy and put him onto my shoulder, where he clings to my collar. Then I grab the knife.

The alien hides in a corner behind the toilet and screeches at me. Carefully, to look how it reacts, I step to the door, then I rush out and bang the door behind me. I will never go on the toilet again.

I hand Itsy my smartphone. "Please write a message to the Decepticons" I order and dictate: "To all Decepticons. Stay away from these creatures. Their acid blood corrodes our metal. Only attack from sufficient distance. Send a photo of the alien with it. Thank you, precious one."

Itsy fulfills the order as wished.

Then I send my new photos to this phone number of the government. Shortly I consider to add a photo of the alien in my bathroom, but then I would have to explain where it comes from and how I removed it from my body.

Oh, and my boss would like to know when I arrived at home safe and sound. "Sound" in a wider meaning. I cannot give him more than a sign of life.

Afterwards - due to safety reasons - I crouch down on the kitchen table to sleep.

In the next morning - after the worst sleep for years, even before I'm waked by the spitting waking noise of my smartphone - I consider if it is a good idea to look what's going on in my bathroom. It's suspiciously quiet.

First I let Itsy look through the key hole, but he cannot spot the alien. Then I grab the knife and rush in.

Carefully I look around. The air smells heavy of my dried blood, but I cannot find the alien. Some splashes of blood and slime on the edge of the toilet tell me where it went.

Aha. No wonder they live in the sewers. Now more than ever I will never go on the toilet again.

I feel so bad, that I don't see myself able to go to the office, so I call a taxi. I need to talk to my boss.

On the way I see on my smartphone that he already answered me last night. "Thank goodness. We were worried. I didn't hear from you for two days."

Two days? I check when I sent him the photo from the subterranean garage. Check the date of today according to the smartphone display. Consult the time on my inner system. Indeed. I laid in the hive for two days and didn't notice it.

In addition that government institution replied. Too bad it is their usual question. "To what do they transform?" I ignore them.

When I go through the office, everyone stares at me wondering. I ignore them and go directly into the office of the boss, who is currently speaking on the phone.

He glances to me, then he promises the caller to call back soon and hangs up.

"Seldra, where have you been, you look terrible." He gets up and adjusts the chair for me. "Sit down. You are pale like the wall!"

I am? Then that's my smallest problem.

I take out my smartphone and navigate to the picture folder. "Here, the aliens ..." I want to say, but speaking makes me cough and a small clump of blood-crusted toilet paper finds its way out of my lungs into my hand. I stare at it slightly shocked, but not because of my injury, but out of surprise and because I don't want anyone else to see this.

But the boss saw it before I could hide it and grabs the phone. "Seldra, wait, I call an ambulance."

"No! No! No ambulance!" I control my muscles and force me to a flat breathing.

"Seldra, you're close to drop dead in my office."

I would tell him that it's not that bad, that it's only toilet paper. But when I think about it like that, it would worry him even more. "I go later. Look." I show him the photos. "Here. These aliens came over the sewers into the subterranean garage. They have a nest down there."

I hand him the smartphone, so he can have a better look at the pictures.

"You need to close the garage. Lock the corridors. Or evacuate the building. Anything, or else everyone here is in danger."

He wipes through the pictures with a serious face impression. What a strange view after he always treated me with effusive friendliness.

"That's terrible. Did you report this to the authorities?"

"Yes, somehow they don't take me serious. They just ask what they transform to."

"That's because humanity officially only knows about the Transformers." He rubs his forehead with great effort. Several times he's about to say something, then he puts up his smile, but it seems to be desperate. "I am ... I am ... speechless, that is just ... incredible."

He massages his forehead. In a gesture of thinking hardly he pushes his finger tips against the root of his nose, before he returns to his serious voice.

"Thanks for the report, I take care of that. You recover. Wait, let me call you a taxi that takes you to the hospital." He grabs the phone.

"That is really not necessary."

"I insist. Someone must take care of you."

Shit. I consider what the best time is for an escape. Now, before the taxi? Shall I name him another destination?

No. I get out of the taxi. Step into the hospital. And leave through another exit. I rather go back to the hive than getting examined by a doctor.


	4. Work in the Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra meets some Decepticons. Don't worry, they're harmless.

Yet in the evening I receive a voice mail from the boss. He sounds angry. "The head physician is a friend of mine. I requested you to get examined. Please take care of yourself."

I write back: "I'm fine, I just need some rest."

Of course I don't allow myself as much rest as would be good for me. I cannot calm down. First I get myself some disinfection for the wound in my lungs and some screws to compensate for the lost of metal.

I shudder thinking about the evening, but at some point I need to go home.

Slowly I open the door to my apartment. The light from the corridor invades the darkness, but it's only a tactical retreat. Every moment it will jump out and devour me.

Carefully my hand touches around the corner and I switch on the light. It's so quiet, so empty, as if a predator would lurk there. As if not even the wood dares to creak, not even the fridge dares to hum to not bring the predator on their tracks.

How ridiculous. I look around thoroughly and there's nothing. When I close the apartment door it's as if I would close myself in and I forgo to lock the door. To keep an escape route open, just in case. I lay myself on the ground and look below the furniture - there is nothing either.

Finally I sneak to the bathroom and slowly push open the door.

There, too, is nothing. Beside the blood crusted toilet paper in the bathroom, what a terrible view. It starts to rot and I get sick from the smell. There's no trace to be seen from the alien, no new one. But what if it returns?

I get myself a roll of parcel tape from my drawers, which I wrap several times around toilet and its lid, fix it thoroughly. When I look at my work and consider if I used enough tape I start to doubt. Maybe it has enough strength to blast the lid open? Can it use its acid blood to burn another exit through the ceramic?

Then I look at the bath tub. What if it comes through that? How shall I close that hole?

Instead I give up sighing, leave the bathroom and lock the door.

But still I don't feel better. If it comes through the bowl with its acid blood, then also through the door.

When I examine myself it turns out that the injury is not that bad. After I removed the remains of the cocoon it's just a small spot where the alien got access to my blood circulation.

I want to crouch down on my kitchen table to sleep. But just when I switch off the light the darkness eats me and I don't see anymore what's lurking there and what sneaks up. The ground before the table could disappear in a deep hole without me noticing it in time.

So I crouch down on the table with the light switched on. In my horror imagination now a small alien creeps to the leg of the table. Eats through it. Suddenly the table flaps and I fall to the ground, into a mass of hungry mouthes.

No, I cannot continue like this.

I leave the apartment. Crouch down in the staircase in front of my door. Better, here I can see in all directions and I have at least three escape routes.

Slowly I start to sneeze off. Until in the early morning the neighbor from the door across spots me and wakes me up. "What are you doing there?"

"There's a spider in my flat" I explain tiredly. The older man looks at me confused and asks if I want him to take it out for me. But I decline thankfully and prepare myself for the day.

After one week I spent nearly sleepless, in which I slowly moved into my apartment, I get back to work. The boss summons me to another office, where there are three rooms for six coworkers at most for the time until we found a better location. Other coworkers also improvised more or less or work from home, while the servers are still running in the old office building under strict safety regulations.

The boss requests to talk with me privately in the kitchen. After he asked for my well-being he openly asks: "Do you still have contact to the Autobots?"

I look at him in confusion. "Why would I?"

"You used to worked for them. I have contacts to the government and over them to NEST. Now I know why you don't speak on the phone: You fear the Decepticons might remember you and take revenge, am I right? And you changed your name with the witness-protection program."

Oh, right, that's not that long ago in this time. For me an eternity has passed since then. "No ... yes, no, I don't have contact to the Autobots anymore." And no, it was no witness-protection program but me with my hacker skills. He made up the rest.

"Wonderful." He beams at me. I wonder what this is about. "I've got a special task for you. Nearby a research facility of the government is located that could make great use of someone with your abilities. There they try to read out the memory of living Transformers."

I'm shocked. Shall it be my eternal destiny to help my fellow humans to saw open my fellow Cybertronians? No, both sounds strange.

I answer: "That's completely out of question."

"Oh, it's about getting the secrets of some Decepticons. I thought because you used to work for the Autobots that would be something for you."

"What Decepticons? What kind of secrets?" I admit that this made me curious. I don't feel well leaving humans with Cybertronian secrets. Decepticons have huge weapons.

"Maybe you take a look before you decide?" my boss suggests.

"But I need to know whether they know me." I try to remember those times. That's so damn long ago. "Are there for instance: Megatron? Ravage? Rage?" Were there more Cons involved back then? Is that stated in my documents? I need to take care to not say any name I don't know from that time.

The boss lowers his eyes to a sheet of paper with handwritten notes on it. "Hm, no, these names are not on the list. It shouldn't matter anyway."

I try to estimate the probability that someone there knows me. Autobots: very likely, slightly unpleasant. Decepticons: unlikely, but very unpleasant. Then, if they are Decepticons anyway, whether the humans are able to tell the difference, is another story.

"But ... they could take revenge for the work I'm doing there?"

"They are kept safely and the lab is shielded. Don't worry, nothing about what you do will get out."

He bends forward and touches my upper arm. "Please say yes. You're the best for the job. Alternatively in the transitional period I can only offer you home office."

"Okay." When I hear "home office" horror runs down my spine. "But when I spot any security risk I leave instantly!"

"Perfect. I'll inform my account executive, then I send you further information."

On the way to my new job, I get serious doubts about my ability to make decisions. If they research Cybertronians there, are they able to detect them? Would they see through my facade? Or do I actually doubt my art of deception? Unlike certain physical skills, I have never had any problems with that.

On the other hand: Maybe it's good if Itsy gets to know a few of its kind. So that he has company if I can no longer take care of him.

And if someone recognizes me there: My external resemblance to any person they have seen is purely coincidental. Obviously, I can't be the person they saw in a completely different place.

The research center is disguised as a factory and guarded by security guys with heavy guns.

I get a queasy feeling and imagine how I would kill them all. How someone points a gun at me, I transform just before the bullet ricochets off my case, then to keep my secret, I have to run to him, stab him, and shoot everyone else with his gun before they have the opportunity to tell someone. Then I would make it look like the Decepticons did it, for example I could hack the surveillance cameras so they are seen instead, then ...

The researcher who picks me up at the gate drags me out of my thoughts.

As soon as we enter the building something starts to beep. The researcher briefly talks to a security guard and is given a small device with which he returns to me. Beeping he runs it along my body, once the noise intesnifies at the level of Itsy, which as always hangs around my neck as a necklace, once at the level of my heart.

"You emit an unusually high level of radioactivity."

"I am in a poor health condition and I have to take some hideous medication. Didn't my boss tell you about it?"

"Not about the medication. What is that supposed to be?"

"I don't know, I can't remember these long names."

He asks me a couple of questions and I just tell them that I have to be careful what I eat and I don't want to talk about it. He requests a blood sample.

What, as evidence of my human DNA? He can have it. Then they all are satisfied and we continue the tour. He shows me my work place.

Then he shows me the inmates.

"I hope you are not afraid of giant battle robots."

I laugh shrilly and don't know what to say about that. He must have checked my background and means that as a joke.

In this research facility, four Decepticons are kept, which I take turns dealing with. I have never seen any of them before.

Onslaught, the weapons fanatic: "Do you want to see my cannon? Then open this shackle."

"Thank you."

I do not react to his offer and continue my work untouched. I have seen hundreds of cannons in the arena, mostly from the front.

Dreadbot, a crazy kill freak, even by Decepticon standards. "Touch me and I'll kill you."

"Of course you do."

Get in line, I just think and don't react any further. Do not provoke, do not provoke ... If we were on Cybertron, I would tell him that I would kick his ass and head into battle. It itches in my metal.

Nitro Zeus, which reminds me of Shockwave with his red optic in the middle of the face. He joyfully spoils my upbringing and doesn't even notice it.

I suddenly say: "Oh, he's that big, too. How did you get him in here?"

He replies: "That's what she said."

I can't help laughing. Well, okay, it's my fault.

One of the researchers advises me: "Just ignore him."

But I counter: "I had bigger ones before."

"You naughty human" the Con criticizes me.

The researcher thinks we will get along very well. I do not think so. My little protoform will ask me what these things mean and will put me in need of explanation.

Last but not least, Mohawk, with his 14 feet the smallest of the four, but he feels at least like 140. "Take your mits from me, you punk!"

I try to calm him down, but the researchers say I should ignore him and just do it.

The researchers are impressed by how bravely I oppose the Cons, they have never seen that before. But I just shrug. If you had fought Cybertronians as often as I did, you also would no longer be afraid. Not after facing the size of Rage and Starscream's nasty weapons. These here are little foot soldiers, and they're chained, what can they do?

My job is to get the secrets of the Cybertronians. I get sick at the thought of what people can do with their technologies. At least I'm here to prevent that.

The Decepticons are housed in a hall, in individual cells in the floor, where they are chained to lifting devices. At the moment Nitro Zeus is lifted, to whom I climb with a ladder.

"Pretty necklace" he says. "May I see it?" The mechanics in his big optical sensor contract when he focuses on me.

"No."

Right now I'm connecting a few cables to his upper body to read out his processor, when he says: "That's wrong. My connections are higher up."

"Thank you."

I unplug the cables and put them back up, in another wrong place.

On my monitor, to which the cables lead, detailed images of Cybertron appear - which I had previously generated on my internal system and saved on my smartphone before I transferred them to the research computer. Now I'm just replaying them.

"Human, it doesn't work that way."

I turn the monitor to him. "Are these your memories of Cybertron?"

He sees the video of an arena fight replaying in high speed. Of course I have no idea what Nitro did on Cybertron, whether he came from there at all. But he has probably seen an arena fight at some point in life.

"Hm, I'm not sure it could be" he doubts.

"And this?" I show him a group of protoforms. Every Cybertronian eventually sees a group of protoforms, and if it is as long as they are one.

"Perhaps?"

"And this?" Now he sees pictures of drinking Decepticons in a bar.

"No."

I ask surprised: "No?"

"No. It's a military bar. I haven't touched a drop since I joined the armed forces."

My face twists into an embarrassed grin of madness and I hide my face behind the monitor. How do you see that?

"Well, I downloaded these memories from your memory" I reply. "So ..." I don't like to accuse him of lying, I can't do that. I could argue that he just doesn't remember it consciously.

Well, doesn't matter actually.

"Well my job is done. It doesn't matter if you confirm it."

He grimaces. A piece of metal slides from above over its large optical sensor, to a disapproving frown, at the same time two small flaps cover the lower part of his optic. "Why are you doing this, human?"

"This is my job" I reply ambiguously.

In contrast to him, my manager is very happy with my work results.

"It's good, but we need their weapons."

Okay, maybe not entirely satisfied.

"They don't know anything about weapons" I claim.

"Really? Onslaught brags about it."

"Who do you want to believe more? Me or one of them?"

Good point. The man opens his mouth, but he doesn't have the words, so I add: "Just because they grow on them doesn't mean that they understand anything about them."

"Then come up with something."

I nod to him. I will, but not in the way he thinks. I'd rather sell my soul to Megatron than to give humans the firepower of the Decepticons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You remember in the movie how Nitro Zeus said: "I know where you live, Enrique. Say hello to your wife for me." I laughed so hard, because I got it as a dirty joke, which makes no sense, 'cause Nitro is a robot. Then I learned that it was actually a threat. But, eh ... the first one got stuck in my head.


	5. Old Acquaintances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra meets some Autobots. Don't worry, they're harmless.

Soon afterwards, via the surveillance cameras, I watch another one of the alien critters dissolve without a trace. No, that's not what I want.

I keep on watching. Mark on a map the places where I watch alien critters and where they dissolve.

There! This is what I want. Another alien that dissolves, but this time on the soft ground of a garden.

As a precaution, I quickly calculate all the options: no aliens, 100 percent security. The hunter alien: A lot of unknowns regarding the circumstances. A fight is likely, but if I pay attention I have a good chance to survive. One of the black alien critters: this is where it gets interesting. In all other cases, Itsy is safe in my hammer space, but if the alien gets hurt, in whichever way and a surge of its acid blood hits me badly ... No, that's too dangerous.

"Itsy, I'm following the traces of this alien" I say to my little one when we get home in the evening. "That could be dangerous. I want you to stay here."

"No!" Itsy jumps on my neck and clings tightly.

I pluck Itsy away from me and hold him in front of me. "Look, I don't want to argue with you every time. I can focus on a fight much better if I don't have to worry about you getting hit if I do."

"Then I'll die with you, but don't leave me alone."

He starts climbing my arm again and I have trouble getting a hold on him.

"But I'm not dying. I'm just worried that you'll get hurt."

"Do you promise?"

Oh, that's a good idea, indeed. At some point he has to learn to get along on his own and if we can lay the foundation for it in this way, I'm fine with that.

I put him on the floor and give him my little finger. "I hereby promise you by Primus that I will come back."

Itsy looks a little puzzled at my little finger, then he hooks his own little leg in.

I smile happily, then I hand him my smartphone.

"Save your energy signature on it and I can contact you. I will send you a message when I have defeated him."

Itsy needs a few tries, then he gets the hang of it and we can write messages to each other. Then I give him a few instructions on how to behave alone at home, briefly stroke him with my finger and run off to my mission.

When I go there everything is quiet. But on the ground I discover a few more tracks next to the holes left by the claws of the alien critter. They roughly have an elongated, human-like shape, but the similarities already end there. The outlines of the toes appear washed out, but the most striking feature is four claw prints at the toes and one at the heel. Yes, that's the proof, we're not alone here. First of all I take a photo of it, for my private archive, I transfer it to my internal system, edit it and feed it into the pattern recognition, so that it cries out when this imprint is found somewhere.

It is already too dark for my human eyes. I take a photo with the smartphone from above and with sufficient lighting, then I let my inner system increase the contrasts and mark the tracks on it. I can see that this alien came from the direction of the road and also returned there. In this way I follow the trail to the street.

From here on I have a little problem. It is dry today and there are no traces on the street. I follow my intuition to the other side. If I were an invisible alien, I wouldn't care where I went. But if I were a hunter-alien chasing another alien creature, I would move where I suspect these other critters. Which is unfortunately behind the next garden at a manhole cover.

No, wait. I mark the tracks on the map and suddenly I see a pattern. The traces lead from the sewage system to the place of dissolving and back again. The hunter alien must have originally come from a different direction, but from where?

With the places where the others have dissolved, I find the other entrances to the sewers from where the alien started his hunt. They lie on a rough line, slowly moving from the north to the south, but I have seen alien critters that you could hunt in various places in the city. This means that the hunter-alien must rather have his retreat in a northerly direction.

I can see where. There is a forest there. Most places are crossed by forest paths, but there are a number of impassable places between slopes and streams.

Since the hunter-alien is busy, I make my way there. Every now and then I stop at suitable places and check the ground, in fact I soon find the striking trace again. Perhaps I will finally get to my photo and can do everything in my power to make the government deal with this problem.

My path soon leads me into the forest. In the ground my pattern recognition discovers slight depressions, indefinite impressions of a certain heavy body. But my own intuition about where things could go well also helps me find my way. I jump over a brook, climb a rocky slope, fight my way through thorn bushes.

When I step out into a clearing in which the trees have tilted outwards, I am amazed. There is actually an alien ship parked here, untraceable with all the vegetation around.

First I take a photo. I send this to Itsy with the message "please ask who owns it" - he got more detailed instructions before I left.

I recognize Cybertronian technology when I see it and this is not.

Itsy sends the photo to the Decepticon channel. But no one can identify the ship. "The Earth is my first mission" one of the Cons apologizes.

"Yes, one of the officers might know. Did they attack you? Do you need help?"

Oh please, none of the officers. All I know are assholes, who I never want to see again.

Itsy sends me an SMS with a single question mark in it. He should speak for me. He wasn't attacked, I was. I think that's a mix-up.

I write back: "no"

Itsy sends to the channel: "No thanks, I just came across it by accident."

Then all I have to do is to gather information myself. The owner is busy and the ship appears left.

My greatest wish was to come home to Earth. But after everything I had experienced, could I lead a quiet, monotonous life at the desk, where every day looks like the other and every step is predetermined? Of course not. My second biggest wish is to discover new horizons. I cannot turn back without looking around in the ship. This is one of those moments that are worth living for.

Also I don't die that easily. The aliens don't know my skills. I still have a trick or two in store.

I sneak quietly to the ship, constantly listening in all directions.

I step in carefully. It is abandoned. The inside looks strangely organic. I enter a round chamber with walls orange and translucent like skin.

A passage, in fact the space behind it, catches my attention. White skulls literally shine at me. I step closer.

Although I recognize them as skulls, also a few human ones, I have never seen most of the species in spite of all my travels. How big is this damn universe?

First I lift my smartphone and take a few photos.

When I turn around, I bump into something and look around in confusion because I don't see anything. No, wait, now I can see a kind of air distortion in front of me?

The air distortion presses a button on his arm and the hunter alien stands in front of me.

Now it is clear that he is neither from Earth nor belongs to any species I know. He is humanoid, his face and body covered with armor, the free areas of his skin seem rough to me as if it was from a lizard. Maybe someone would call this ugly, but I have no right to judge the appearance of other species with a bot mode like mine.

That also explains why I couldn't see him. A kind of camouflage device. Damn.

My breathing accelerates. My eyes flick to the side briefly as I assess the way to the exit.

But the alien stands still in front of me.

He slowly raises a hand. Grabs my chin. Gently, almost tenderly he turns my head to one side and then to the other.

Then his gaze wanders down on me, stops roughly in the middle of my body and wanders up again. What's that supposed to be leading to?

But then he raises his free hand, over which two long blades protrude from the wrist, ready to stab.

"Wait wait!" I raise my hands in a sudden flash of inspiration. "Wait. I know exactly what you want. Wait a second."

The skulls on the wall must be trophies. Then the look at my head. In contrast to normal grown ones, my skull is perfectly symmetrical, so that my face looks as boring as possible and it is easy to forget. Unfortunately, that makes my skull a unique trophy - my designer didn't consider this detail, I think sarcastically. But no problem, that can be helped.

I do some calculations, then I reach into my hammer space. Part of the metal of my body takes on a new shape and extends to my hand.

Then I pull out a metal skull, which I present to the amazed alien. A skull based on my image, perfectly symmetrical. I'm a little bit proud of myself.

But he is only a little surprised. Then he looks back at me and knocks the skull out of my hand.

"Oh come on."

I transform. I avoid the next stabs. As a human I don't have the reaction time to keep up with the speed of my attacker's attack, but here the machine takes control. With all of my combat experience, my processor has learned to predict the trajectories of blows and stabs, even the trajectories of projectiles before they leave the barrel, using all the visible information, so that I have enough time to react.

Still, I'm pushed back.

At the next opportunity, when I dodge a blow before the alien repositions, I jump to its unprotected side, expose my two weapons.

"Back with you!" My pea shooter and my laser pointer. I don't need to tell him.

The alien briefly freezes and actually backs off. When I illuminate him with the laser pointer, he takes cover behind the column in the middle of the room.

As I move backwards towards the exit, I hold the laser pointer in his direction. He switches on his stealth mode - I don't see anything, nothing at all in contrast to my human mode before, but I think I can hear him leap into an adjoining room.

I don't care what he's up to, so hit the road.

It is hopeless to try to escape on human feet in the face of the difficulties on my way here. The alien runs around here more often than I do and he knows his way around better. I can try to escape in bot mode, but now my energy signature reveals my location here. So I have to get to distance, then transform back and hide before a member of my robot species detects me.

I retract the weapons and sprint away with a lot of noise. I feel like an elephant, with every step the leaves rustle and dry branches break under my claws. Also it is dark and once or twice I trip over branches that are lying on the ground. What a stupid idea, why don't I just put a chain of lights around me?

I head for a particularly dark spot in the forest, which turns out to be a thicket full of conifers. The floor is covered with moss, although there are dry branches here too, but my steps are a little quieter.

I take cover, transform, listen. My hearing is about the same in both modes, which means I need to have the noise amplified by my processor, but the forest is full of noise and every contraction of wood, every sound of the wind in the treetops becomes an explosion in my ears - not helpful. I didn't teach the processor to filter out steps and to only amplify those and I don't have time to do that now.

At the same time I consult the map on my inner system, look for the shortest way out of the forest - to a road with an open agricultural landscape behind it. If I'm too loud to hide anyway, I'd rather go where I can either take advantage of my robot's top speed while running or where I can catch a ride to get me to safety.

I head in that direction. As a human I can classify the sounds more easily, I can make quieter steps, because I have a finer feeling and greater mobility in the foot compared to the claw, but I feel so slow.

I don't hear branches that break under a broad foot beside to my own. But something big is moving somewhere through the treetops. It gets louder, comes in my direction.

I get scared, transform and run. But I am not moving as fast as I would like to and rocks, slopes, all kinds of things that can be found in the forest stand in my way. I constantly stumble in the dark, run somewhere or touch an obstacle that I have to walk around. The thing in the treetops is on my heels, but the road is not far anymore, and I can already see the moving beams of the headlights between the trees.

The plasma projectile comes out of nowhere, hits me in the middle of the jump and throws me away. I fly through the air, roll down a steep slope behind the edge of the forest and land on hard asphalt. The big headlights of a truck driving up blind me - it's too late to get off the street and I don't know where to go, I don't see anything. The brakes screech. I lift my claws in front of my head to protect it and prepare for the impact. But it doesn't come. I blink into the light. The truck is so close to me that I can only see it as a radiator wall in front of me. That suddenly transforms and stands up as a robot, holding a cannon in front of me.

"Optimus?" I ask in surprise.

"Surprised to see me Decepticon?"

I try to understand what that means. It doesn't sound like a joke.

"Put down your weapons and surrender." Doesn't he recognize me?

I freeze in astonishment. What is he doing here? Why is he talking to me like this after everything we've been through together?

Wait, he actually doesn't recognize me. Awareness strikes me at once: I became the hybrid being that I am now when I was with the Decepticons. I lived with them, learned to transform, everything. The Autobots don't know about it. They have never seen me transformed. They don't know my new name - new names, neither my Decepticon name, nor my new human name, or at least don't know that I'm behind it. They don't even know that I'm half of their species now. The last status they have from me is that I am merged with the Allspark and was kidnapped by the Decepticons. Patchwork is the only Autobot that saw my machine parts when the Decepticons kidnapped him to repair my damage. But as far as I know he had no opportunity to tell his people about it. They don't know anything about my escape, no Decepticon would have told them. I'm officially still on Cybertron. Or if they follow the signature of the Allspark, then I am on a journey through space.

"I'm waiting. Don't make me shoot."

I look into his cold, blue optics and see that he is serious. I could transform, reveal myself. But then I have to talk to him. Then he will ask me what happened in my time on Cybertron, then I have to tell him about all the humiliation that I have suffered and that I am trying to forget. He will ask me where the Allspark is. The Allspark, which I will bring to a new home in the distant future with the help of Megatron. What Optimus made me do when I saw where his leadership would take the Autobots. No, I can't talk to him. I don't want to be on his side anymore.

"It's all right" I say, exposing my "weapons" before I release them. He can have these junk things. I toss them to his direction and intentionally pass him. As he watches them passing him by I just want to expose my jet engines and fly away, but then I hear more cars behind me and the distinctive sound of other Autobots transforming behind me and pointing their weapons at me. Crap, I can't risk that. I can fly, but my steering skills are virtually non-existent, so I lack the maneuverability to avoid the shots in the air. I would have dared to do it with Optimus alone, but with so many cannons that is too risky for me. I made a promise to Itsy.

Optimus picks up my weapons and carefully takes them into custody before turning back to me. "What is your name?"

I hesitate, first I want to say my human name, but then I think it would be better to keep it to me for camouflage. I don't want them to connect my two identities. "Mother of Decepticons. Conmother."

"Conmother" - the name certainly sounds like the announcement of doom in the acoustical sensors of an Autobot - "step back and lie flat on the floor. Do not resist and no harm will be done to you."

The Autobots put magnetic shackles onto me, which awaken unsettling memories and bring me blind and while constantly pointing at least one cannon at a time on me to I suspect their base or one of their bases, so that I do not know exactly where it is.

They don't seem to be prepared for prisoners, so they just take me to the far corner of this hall, where they put me down on the linoleum. It would take me half an hour with my shackles to crawl to the door.

Actually I thought people wouldn't have a good relationship with any Cybertronians since the Chicago case, but I see some walking through the base on the way. Humans. They wear camouflage clothing like soldiers, but they only have handguns with them. I don't think that's bad. I'm already figuring out how I could take advantage of this when fleeing. I would knock one down, then I would transform, put on his clothes and just walk out. But I can only do that when the Autobots are on the road.

"Hey" Ratchet approaches me. "I wouldn't normally do that, but Optimus asked me to examine your damage."

I look down at myself. A large area on the right side is dented inwards, the metal there is dull and rough. In addition to my otherwise mirror-smooth surface the flaw is very noticeable. I would really like to have medical care because I don't like the values returned by my sensors. The flesh in that area constantly sends out pain signals and the blood values ... look kind of strange. "No." But it's not possible. Because if he examines me he will inevitably come across my organic parts.

"I've dismantled enough of your kind to know what you look like inside. There's nothing to hide."

"No, leave me alone."

"Fine, then do what you want." Annoyed he throws the servos into the air. "However, I need to do a scan to make sure you're available for further interrogations." He means: that I am not going offline.

"I said no."

But the green laser line from his optics runs across my body. I moan annoyed.

For several seconds he stands there looking at my data. "According to my sensors, you are 58.6 percent organic."

"Your scanners are broken," I reply dryly. But I'm a Decepticon, at least that's what they think, he doesn't believe a word of what I'm saying anyway.

"In addition, your blood values indicate extensive burns."

So that's what the sensor data mean. I turn my head apathetically away from him. "Are you finally done?"

"If your organic half can die - and this can be assumed given the blood values - then you should have it treated urgently."

"Let me go and I'll take care of it. If not, then bad luck for me."

After further unsuccessful attempts to convince me - I don't count calling me stubborn as convincing - he finally leaves an ointment and bandages next to me and talks to Optimus that I will be taken to a room where the shackles are removed and I take care of my injuries on my own while no-one watches.

"Thank you" I murmured quietly to Ratchet when they got me out of there. "Keep it to yourself." He nods imperceptibly for confirmation and to my satisfaction he pretends that none of this has happened.

There is no way to avoid that Optimus is now joining me for an interrogation. A voice whispers in my head: I am not a Decepticon. You don't want me as your enemy. No, I can't talk to him.

Optimus sinks down on one knee in front of me to be closer to me when we speak, but I can't stand the look of these blue optics and I stare at the floor in front of his pedes.

So often, for so long have I longed for this moment, back then on Cybertron, when I was walking through the city of the Decepticons and somehow had to get along. I wanted to talk to him so badly, to tell him everything that I experienced there, but he was beyond reach. One time Megatron called me to see Optimus' face on the screen and he asked me in a soft, sympathetic voice how I was doing. But Megatron was standing next to me, so I just said: good. I'm fine. I could not reveal myself in front of the leader of the Decepticons after working hard to hide any weakness to not give them any target. I wanted to appear strong, to earn respect, to fight for my place in a society that I couldn't leave and instead arranged myself with it. So I secretly poured my heart out to Optimus in simulations until I felt better.

Now he is here, we are alone among ourselves and I have nothing left to say to him.

I tell him, "Whatever you want, the answer is No. I'm not talking to Autobots. You're wasting your time."

I am used to dealing with Decepticons. If I insult them, they'll laugh or get angry. If I say that I don't want something, they provoke me until I fight for my no. When I'm sad, they ignore me.

Autobots, however, are different. I don't remember well, it's been too long since I've had intensive contact with them the last time, but I can now tell.

He nods understandingly. "You're too young, Megatron shouldn't have sent you on this mission. There wasn't enough time to prepare yourself appropriately for contact with us Autobots."

What does that mean, of course I'm old enough for everything. I jump up in my shackles, stand upright on my hind legs, struggling to keep my balance with my tail. "I'm an adult and Megatron doesn't send me anywhere!"

"What were you doing out there?"

"Hunting aliens." Ehm, that sounds different than it is meant to. I let myself halfway down nervously.

"Did you desert?"

"Um ..." Oh dear, that's awkward. Does he want to persuade me to join him? I lie down on the floor and turn away from him. "I'm not branded. Leave me alone."

But he doesn't leave me alone. He waits with all the patience of a million-year-old machine that I cannot understand.

"Strange" he says finally, and before I can ask myself what's strange, he continues, "I feel like I know you. However, I never forget an acquaintance."

"No, we don't know each other" I explain hastily. My tin voice sounds different from my human voice, but still remotely similar. Does he hear that? I try to adjust my voice inconspicuously. "And if I did, I wouldn't care."

"Aren't you going to look at me at least when I'm talking to you?"

In fact, I turn to him, but these huge, blue optics seem to look straight into my soul and I feel exposed, so I look back at the floor below his pedes.

"Maybe you can still answer a question for me" Optimus returns to the previous topic. "We miss a friend of ours, Brains is his name. Did you hear about him? Did the Decepticons abduct him or kill him? Our energy detectors received a signature from the place where we last saw him."

I just want to say no, but the name seems familiar to me. Hm, where is that from? In my mind I see a table as I scroll through the list of names of Cybertronians that the research institutions have in custody. Brains, pretty high up on the list, I had enough attention left to remember at least now that I saw it.

"No, he's at the humans" I answer.

"Oh." Optimus looks surprised. "Are you sure? Where exactly?"

"I don't know, in any laboratory where people are examining Cybertronians. He's alive." There are multiple locations and apart from the fact that we collect data together, we have nothing to do with each other, so why should I care where the other laboratories are located? I also can't figure it out for him without it being weird.

"Thank you" he says, and nods to me before he stands up and says goodbye.

When I'm finally left alone I pull out my smartphone and want to send Itsy a message. My claws are not meant to grab and the phone slips out between two claws. I throw myself on the floor and can just catch it with my claws spread out flat, then I lay the device on the floor with the new scratch on the screen.

Then I want to use it. But it only responds to human touch. I senselessly type around on the screen with my claws, but it ignores me. I hate my bot mode.

One of the men watches my doings. "Decepticon, why do you have a smartphone when you can't use it?"

"My radio module is damaged" I explain. It reminds me that this is not the way Cybertronians use electrical devices. So I bring my tail forward and connect the tip to the device. Yes, that's how it works. Unfortunately I have no reception here. Crap, Itsy is worried. How should I tell him I'm fine?

A second soldier joins the first one. They both stare at me, I hate that. They also talk quietly about me: "Look, it uses a smartphone. I have never seen a Decepticreep uses a smartphone. Aren't they computers themselves?"

"I'm a she!" I let them know. "Go and make love to yourself."

I connect my inner system to the smartphone to take care of the data traffic myself. I occasionally see data packets from other smartphones and laptops flying around. Perhaps I could hack my way out with several hops to notify Itsy, but then I run the risk of someone catching my energon signature outside. Is it worth the risk? Or I wait for an opportunity to escape, but how long will it take? Oh Itsy, I'm a bad mother.

"Hey Decepticon" calls one of the men. "What are you doing? There's no reception in here."

Oh what he doesn't say. "I'm trying to tell my baby that I'm not coming home for the next time" I reply angrily. "I left it behind so as not to endanger it, now it's sitting there all by itself, waiting for me."

With this I aroused their curiosity. "You have a baby? How did you do it? Optimus never told us how you reproduce."

I look at him. "Do you want to see a photo?" I call it up on the screen, a picture I took of Itsy so I can look at it if I miss him. Then I push the device away from me and look apologetically at my shackles.

The soldier comes up to me. My plan is not yet complete. First I take a close look to see if he has keys with him, then I consider whether trying to escape is worthwhile at this moment or whether I would rather build trust so that they become careless around me. Maybe I can persuade him to take my smartphone with him so that he sends a message to Itsy for me. I'm already beginning to formulate the message. "Itsy, I was captured and I'm not coming home for now. I asked them to take the smartphone outside to send you this message. I'm trying to get back to you as soon as possible. Take care. Love you, dear."

He stops at a distance. Looks at me hesitantly.

"What's the matter? I'm unarmed."

His eyes rest on my claws and on the shackles that hold my claws together. He thinks it's safe enough to dare to come close and to pick up the smartphone. The man looks at the screen.

"What an ugly creature" he says, wiping to the next picture.

I would drop my jaw if I had one in bot mode, so it takes a tenth of a second to lose my composure. The anger explodes out of my spark. How dare this creature calls my baby ugly? Itsy, my light in the dark, sparkling out of my spark, my last one built. What an impertinence!

My tail shoots forward, pulls his legs away. With legs and arms at the same time I push myself off the floor and land on the surprised soldier's chest. The tip of my tail shoots to his neck and makes contact with his nervous system. Wait, now you're getting to know a world of horror.

The other soldier takes a few steps back in surprise, pulls his gun and aims at me. "Get off of him right now!"

I only barely notice him. Most of my attention is focused on the simulation I feed into the man's brain. I look at the other one challenging. "Come on, shoot!" I demand. These ridiculous bullets from these little guns will just bounce off my case, except for a few bruises nothing will happen to me. But if I'm lucky, they bounce in a direction that they hit one of the two men. Then it's just an unfortunate accident, for which I can't do anything, their own fault. I wouldn't mind.

But the shouting brings the Autobots onto the scene. Optimus Prime, Ironhide and Bumblebee roll into the room and come near from three sides, transform and point their cannons at me. That is a clear argument. Maybe I could block one hit with the right technique, any more would overheat my metal and burn my human flesh. Although I can calculate the trajectories of the projectiles from the target directions long before they leave the barrels, I am not able to avoid them with these restraints.

"Leave him alone," orders Optimus.

Nevertheless, I remain seated on the man. If I have no choice and they shoot, I would ram my claws into his throat and take him to death with me. "He insulted my baby. He has to be punished."

I think I see the workings in Optimus' processor when he integrates the new information into his knowledge base.

"Soldier, excuse yourself" he orders.

I secretly loosen the tip of the tail after I send the same information to the soldier.

He wakes up, hyperventilating. Looks frightened to my face. "What the hell was that?"

"Soldier" Optimus repeats.

The man says "I'm sorry." As if by coincidence, it means nothing to him. His mind is still occupied with something else.

But if I want to see my son again, I have to accept that. "THAT are ugly aliens. Remember that before you judge my baby's looks next time. Get lost. Stay away from me." Awkwardly, both with arms and legs at the same time, I want to get off the man, I briefly lose my balance and can only stay upright with difficulty.

The man rolls over, gets to his feet, and leaves while grasping his neck, breathing heavily. The other one goes to him to inquire about his condition.

The Autobots drive me back to my corner - I push my smartphone before me - then they retreat their weapons.

"Leave us alone" Optimus sends the others out.

Oh crap, he's starting his brainwashing stuff again. I turn away from him to express my lack of interest.

I can hear him sitting down near me. "I thank you."

"Leave me alone. I only spared him because otherwise you would avenge him."

"You did the right thing. The man doesn't know better. He'll learn from the incident."

"Hmpf", I don't say anything more. Back then on Mars I was constantly trying to explain to people that the Cybertronians live, that they feel pain - nothing worked. The man will only learn because I punished him, because this negative statement about a protoform has consequences, not because I spared him. I can't teach people to see Cybertronians with my optics, but I don't need to discuss that with Optimus.

"Our races have discrepancies, but I firmly believe that if we try to settle them, there can be peace" he says.

No, Optimus. Your way to make peace is going too far. "Some things are not to be forgiven."

He is silent for a while. Gives the equivalent of a sigh.

"So you take care of a protoform, is that why you deserted? I'm a little surprised because of your young age."

Tz, what an impudence. "I'm an adult" I point out. "Here, this is my son." I send him the photo unencrypted over a normal WiFi frequency.

Again he is silent for a while, unusually long. "Then ... I'm assuming you are taking care for it for someone else. Or it's adopted." Excuse me? "I understand. Then everything makes sense."

"I pulled him out of my spark and raise him for myself. What are you talking about? What should make sense?"

But instead of an answer, he is only silent, thoughtful. Until he finally says: "I offer to get your protoform and bring it to you. I give you my word as a Prime that we don't mean any harm."

"Nah", I laugh and imagine myself giving them the address of my apartment. "I don't want you on my mat." Maybe they'll look up who rented it. Maybe they call up a photo and recognize me. No, thanks. Or they enter my apartment and Itsy kills them. He has instructions to stay hidden, but if someone comes looking for him ... I taught him how to defend himself in case of emergency. We don't have to take that risk.

Optimus makes another suggestion. "I offer to pick up your protoform at a location of your choosing and bring it to you."

This thought alone makes me angry. I snap: "I don't want to have you near my home, nor do I let my son walk halfway through the city, that's far too dangerous."

Why do they care about my problems at all? I don't care if they feel bad about holding me here. At some point the hunter alien will have followed my tracks and will find me here. If he sees that I won't be able to get out for the foreseeable future, I expect him to break in here to get my head. I will use the moment to flee. Goodbye, Autobots, it was not a pleasure to meet you.

I hear the crunch of Optimus' neck when he nods, then he leaves me alone again.

It doesn't take long before Optimus visits me again. Annoyed I roll with my optics and turn away demonstratively. When does he finally understand that I don't feel like talking to him?

This time I hear him stop instead of sitting down.

"I talked to my friends" he explains. "Since I can't reconcile with my conscience to separate a mother from her child, I'll let you go. On condition that you don't tell the other Decepticons that you saw us."

I turn my head to him. Did I mishear? I turn completely to him. How dare he to be nice to me after how I acted? I still can't bring myself to look into his optics, instead I look at the floor to his feet. "You know that my promises are worth nothing? I've broken all but one thing so far: that I'm returning to my son." Oh, and to never beg for mercy, the one I gave Megatron. Or just not begging him for mercy? It was so long ago. No matter, something like that. Certainly only the latter.

"I have the feeling that I can trust you," he explains with a soft voice. "You will not betray us. Tomorrow we will set you out where we found you."

"You know what" I finally say. "If the alien that I hunted finds me here and will attack this place, then I use the distraction to escape. It is completely unnecessary to release me. Why do you want to do this?"

Optimus only replies: "Remember that we have shown you mercy when you face one of us again." He moves away to make the necessary preparations.

Optimus personally takes care of my release. I get my weapons back. I am loaded blind and bound into his trailer. I don't know what to say. He does it for real. "I'll take you to the place where I picked you up."

"The alien is after my head" I reply. "I'd rather be dropped off somewhere else."

"As far as I can without attracting attention, I agree."

The real reason is that I can either be found by my energy signature and attract more attackers, or I have to transform immediately after the release and reveal my true identity to Optimus. So I let myself be dropped off at some sewer entrance, where I can disappear out of sight straight away, far enough from the hive not to encounter nasty surprises.

Optimus commands a human helper to open my shackles and opens the doors of his trailer. I jump out. I stop there and turn around one last time. "Thank you" I say, surprisingly, before I disappear into the darkness.

At home I happily hug Itsy and decide never to leave him behind again. At least not without a good reason.

When I have acclimatized, I take out my smartphone and want to report the first incident to that government number. As a proof I have the photo of the spaceship and the trophy room that I send along.

A few minutes later an unknown number tries to call me, but I don't respond.

Soon after I receive a SMS. "We would like to talk to you about the incident."

I offer them a personal chat.

They invite me to some official building.

The man who interviews me lets me describe all the events. I underline this with the photos I took of the spaceship and its trophy room. "Unfortunately I didn't manage to take photos of the aliens itself" I add.

They want to know exactly what the aliens looked like and I give them the best possible description. Then he asks: "What has the alien transformed into?"

At first I don't understand what he means. "Into nothing. Don't you listen? This was not a transformer. It was something new."

He pulls out a folder and goes through some documents. "Is he on one of these photos?"

He shows me photos of Cybertronians. Okay, I have to admit that some of my descriptions apply to them. A photo of Ravage roughly matches my description of the black ones and a couple of the slimmer, more humanoid Decepticons could be mistaken for this hunter-alien. If you ignore certain details, such as the size or color I have described. Or that they fucking not transform.

"No no no." How can they misunderstand me that much? "Wait, I'll draw them for you."

I get paper and pen. On my inner system I create a picture from my memories that is as realistic as possible, which I put half-transparently over my sight and use it as a template.

Unfortunately, my human hand is not adept enough as would be appropriate for a machine, and my eyes are twitching all the time - which is normal for people and otherwise I don't notice, but here the image shakes constantly. That also has its advantage and so my pictures look good - okay, let's say acceptable - according to human standards, but not so good that it would attract attention.

The researcher looks at them in detail. Compares them to his photos. He looks confused. He asks me some more questions and lets me mark on a map where I saw the spaceship.

Finally he holds me his hand. "Thanks for the report. Citizens like you make an important contribution to the security of the population."

If he is not mistaken. I smile sweetly and sourly and I am dismissed.


	6. A Visit in the Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Predator followed Seldra's traces.

It's Monday. It was the worst weekend in a long time. I try to keep my injuries secret.

"Good morning, Ms. Sadr'khor. What's going on, do you have a limp?" One of the researchers greets me.

But I only succeed with moderate success. "No, I was just laying strangely tonight, that's all." The hit of the plasma flash left a large, ugly burn. I have taken care of it as best I could, but it burns with every movement.

"Do you need an ibuprofen?"

What, a pain reliever? I can still remember the last time I took one. I mean I was given one. Actually, I can't remember because I was out of my mind in pain, but the video afterwards of my behavior under the influence of a pain reliever, that's what I remember exactly. It was so embarrassing. I had to explain to people that their medication works differently on my hybrid body than on a normal person. I have no desire for further experiments of this kind.

"No thanks."

I suppress my pain and bury myself in my work.

I try to connect some cables to one of Nitro's numerous weapons. Is that a rocket launcher that fires spearguns? Good. It is similar enough to human weapons that I can pass it on. This means that they cannot do any greater damage than they already do.

"What's wrong with you, human?"

Only now I realize how hard I breathe. I have switched off my pain transmission and consciously feel nothing, but I have not considered that an injury has further consequences. The thought is immediately replaced by the realization: Nitro Zeus is watching me. I find that unusual for a Decepticon for whom a human being is an underdeveloped being. It's as if I was interested in the well-being of an ant.

"Nothing."

I continue my work and pull myself together. But you can't fool a Decepticon. They have an eye for weak points.

"Hey, don't be rude. You want my information, right? You tell me something, I tell you something."

I refrain from pointing out that I can get his data anyway. We both know that's not true. Instead, I have a new opportunity.

"OK." I take out my smartphone. "An alien invasion is underway in the city" I explain as I open my picture folder.

"What? And I'm not participating? Scandal!"

I laugh softly - I briefly crouch when my injury hurts from the movement - and show him the picture of the spaceship. "Here, have you seen anything like this?"

He looks at it and says no.

Then I show him a picture of the alien in the parking garage. "And that one?"

"No. Are there more pictures? Give me that phone."

My arm freezes mid-air as I'm about to hand him my smartphone. Wait a second, I still have the translator on it. That would raise uncomfortable questions.

"Um, sorry. The pictures are private."

"Do you have any nude photos of you there? Don't worry, I'm not into humans."

I put the phone away. "Still not."

"Human, if you let me out of here, I'll help you with your little alien problem."

"No thanks, I'll be fine." I turn back to the computer.

"If you just turn off the cameras and open my shackles, make it look like an accident, a power outage. I would hide in the garage below with the other vehicles to make them think I was gone, and I would wait for a good opportunity to drive through the gate."

I imagine that being trapped in the lab is incredibly boring and they are passing the time making plans to escape.

"Oh, I know how it works. Then you do this with me." I press my thumb and index finger together and make a smacking sound as if I was crushing grape. Actually I would rather say "Megatron" instead of "you". Or any other Decepticon. It makes no difference to me.

"We are not as mean as you think. We are grateful and generously reward our helpers."

I don't believe a word. "Mohawk tells me every day that he'll kill me as soon as he gets out."

"It's just his way of expressing himself, he doesn't mean it. We yearn for freedom like all sentient beings. Are you here at will or do you yearn for freedom, too?"

I have no desire to discuss it any further. I can't tell him the real reason anyway, why I prefer them to be kept safely here.

I wake up like from a coma and slowly raise my head. I look around in confusion. This is my desk in the research facility. I must have fallen asleep at work. The combination of simulations and the nocturnal drifting around because someone wants to kill me makes me really tired.

What time is it? I look at my smartphone. I got used to looking at the time on my smartphone. Hundreds of small, human habits perfect my camouflage.

2 a.m. The interior is deserted, except for a few security guards patrolling the building. I feel like wasted. And yet my heart is pounding unusually quick and my mind is brightly awake, the injury is burning more intensely than yesterday. The hair on my neck rises. Something is wrong here.

After I briefly make sure that everything is in order in my office, I sneak up to the door, open it quietly, peek out into the corridor. The light from my office shines into the darkness, but when I step outside, the motion detector notices me and illuminates the corridor. Several people are busy scurrying around during the day, now it looks extinct, creepy, like after the zombie apocalypse.

I look left and right. Somehow I have to think of bullets that fly freely down the long, straight corridor and I hardly dare to leave the door frame. They fly from right to left. On the right it goes towards the exit, on the left to some of the prisoners. I choose the left to check if everything is alright.

Just before I reach the door to the machine hall, I hear a door opens at the other end of the corridor and wince. I turn around. I can see barely visible that the air at the end of the corridor appears slightly distorted - an alien has sneaked into the facility.

I pretend that I don't see anything by letting my gaze wander for a moment, then I disappear through the door.

I find myself at the top of a staircase that leads me down to the spacious, almost empty hall. There are struts on the walls and the ceiling, on which cranes can move. There is a row of large rectangular openings in the floor to the other end. Here, at this end of the hall, there are tables with tools and there is a large gate for delivery that is unfortunately closed and I don't know how to open it.

I hurry down the stairs. Underneath I find a fire extinguisher with which I shroud myself in a white cloud.

I don't see any other possibility. If security guards keep an eye on the monitors at this time, they won't discover the alien anyway. In the extinguishing dust he leaves at least a few footprints that explain my unusual behavior. On the other hand it hides me from both the cameras and the alien if I need to transform in this area in the next few minutes.

Now I need a hiding place. There are only a few of these in the room.

The stairs are out of question, I'm too easily visible underneath. The steps have no rear wall. Above all, I should be far away from the alien if he spots me.

Only one option remains: the rectangular openings. The places where the prisoners are kept.

I sigh. Not an empty cell, I wouldn't make it out on my own, at least not without transforming.

Ideally somewhere in the middle when the alien is no longer looking closely and I still have room to the rear.

I walk down the hall and jump into Nitro Zeus's cell. The last time I saw him he was chained and rendered harmless.

I hear his systems start up from the sleep mode they go into at night. "Oh, a visitor at this time? Do you want to cuddle, human?"

I already regret my decision. He's less aggressive than many of the other inmates, but he's a babbler.

"Excuse the disturbance" I whisper with courtesy. "I'm running out of options."

"So that's what I am for you. A one-night stand. Because you can't find anything better."

I ignore his teasing. "It won't take that long" I reply appropriately to the topic and listen to the door. "Oh, and will you take care of my necklace, please?"

"Well at least you're paying me for my services."

I grab my necklace with my little finger and hang it on the corner of an armor piece on his pede. Then I take off my shoes in foresight. "Please, these too."

"You're asking for a lot, human, for not being very talkative otherwise."

"Please be quiet. He's camouflaged. I need to hear where he is."

I press myself close to the wall on the aisle side, listening, looking up.

I can already hear the door at the top of the stairs.

My heart is pounding with tension. He shouldn't see me under the ledge above if he doesn't look closely. To be on the safe side, I retreat to the front corner. If everything goes wrong, I have to react faster than he does. If I transform, I can reach his feet in one jump and pull him down here.

I don't hear anything for a while, but my hair on the back of my neck feels like it's taut to tear. The hunter looks around. Then I hear his steps slowly, carefully, coming down the stairs. He only looks around the front part for a moment, then I hear him slowly coming down the aisle, constantly pausing and looking around.

As expected, I hear him pause longer on the first cells than on the others.

The closer he gets, the faster my heart beats, the louder my breathing becomes. That makes me nervous. I send commands to my hibernation systems to shut down my circulation.

When he is only a few cells away, I hold my breath, but there is nothing I can do to relieve the tension. The steps stop above me. I see Nitro's optical sensor staring at the place where he hears the noise, but he sees nothing.

The steps keep moving. I'm still alive.

After a few cells, I dare to breathe again. Then I slowly start up my metabolism. It's not over yet. At the thought of it my heart starts racing again.

No, I can't stay here and hope that he will go away on his own. He saw me going into this hall. I don't know what he'll do if he can't find me, but just leaving? I do not think so. Rather searching more thoroughly.

I look at Nitro and pleadingly put my finger on my lips. Then I climb up on him, as quietly as possible. Only the fan of the ventilation system helps to mask my noises.

I carefully peek over the edge and see the air distortion. I don't know which way he is looking, but if he doesn't storm towards me or shoots at me, it's probably the other one.

I quietly climb over the edge and move forward as slowly and as quickly as possible to keep my noise level low. I also take the steps at an uneven pace so that the even drumming of a fleeing prey does not alert him.

It is only when I set foot on the stairs that the noise sounds loudly through the hall, so that it startles me.

I briefly turn to the alien - a mistake. It takes me almost half a second to see the air distortion running down the aisle - then I give up all the caution and rush up the stairs. Through the door, then I run down the corridor.

The hunter meets me in the foyer, where I am waiting for him, standing on a chair, holding a broomstick in my hand, which I swing through the air in defiance. "Just come here, I'll kick your ass." The sprinkler system rains down on me, the cold water makes me shiver. I breathe heavily.

He accepts my challenge and pulls out an alien spear, expands it and rushes towards me. Then there is a loud bang when the hunter reaches the puddle that I put under electricity using the reception computer. He becomes visible, bends when his muscles contract and tries to leave the water, but falls to the ground just before the fuse blows out and all the lights go out.

I take out my smartphone and switch on the lamp function. What a horrible sight. I quickly take a picture to capture it for posterity. Nobody will ever believe me this.

I listen to the silence of the darkness - nothing - then I carefully move down from my chair - splash - and forward to the still body of the alien.

I don't know if he would have something like a pulse or breathing if he were alive. At least now I can't find anything like that.

Finally. After all the difficulties he caused me, I finally have my peace.

Then I feel my way back to the machine hall to pick up Itsy, as I promised.

It is quiet in the hall, not even the bored rattling of the machine parts can be heard.

I feel my way along the railing and count the cells.

"Hello Nitro" I greet. "I've come to get my necklace back. May I enter your cell?"

"What's going on here, human?" He asks seriously, then the rogue returns. "I thought you dumped me."

"I grilled the alien, but the power went out."

I am waiting for an answer. Now, I have time. "I'm sorry I just entered your empire without permission. It was an emergency."

I even have time to play the polite one. I don't care if he agrees or not. But just because they are prisoners and machines they don't have to be treated disrespectfully. I know how that is like.

Machine parts clink in his cell. "Yes, come and get your necklace back."

I carefully let myself fall into the darkness and land on the floor of his cell. Slightly nervous I feel my way forward - I know Decepticons loathe human touch - and try to keep contact to a minimum when I take my necklace back on and put my shoes on unnecessarily.

"Thank you. May I climb out on you now?"

"If you tell me what that was?"

Hm, what's the bare minimum I have to tell him to let me go? Or is it better to hit the road without permission? There is nothing he can do about it anyway.

I laugh softly. "Then I'll make myself comfortable here. I don't know what that was either. You robots aren't the only alien species in the city, as I told you before. It's some kind of a trophy hunter. I don't know what he wants from me. I offered him a trophy but he didn't take it."

"Tz, tz. That's not how it works, human."

With the others, yes.

I hear one of the other inmates gripe, Mohawk: "Will you be ready soon, Nitro?" The outage has woken them up from sleep mode.

He sighs. "Get away, human."

"Many thanks." I won't wait for a second invitation and climb to freedom.

What a day. It is the first time in a long time that I can safely go home.

The next morning in the research laboratory I am stopped at the entrance by security guards, together with the head of the research facility: "Please come with me." He is angry.

They lead me into a kind of interrogation room, where the guards are posted around us. That makes me feel slightly uncomfortable.

"Can you tell me what that shit means?" He shows me the video of the surveillance camera on a screen, how I enter the machine hall and spray around with the fire extinguisher shortly before the cameras fail.

"Of course", I answer and play the angry myself. "Your security precautions are inadequate. Somehow an alien got in from outside and I had to improvise."

"And for that you cause a power failure and destroy the reception computer?"

I look at him angrily. "Your sleepy guards don't react when you wave at the camera." I turn around to the guards. "No offense, boys." They nod at me with disinterest.

The leader is rubbing his forehead. "Look, I don't care how you handled the intruder."

"No?" Now I'm surprised.

"I want to know how it can be that several of our research objects escaped at the same time."

I ... can't quite follow him. He can only mean the Cybertronians? "Pardon?"

"Namely: Dreadbot, Mohawk and Nitro Zeus. Apparently they used the blackout to break out. The blackout you caused. Onslaught also got free from his shackles, but he didn't fit through the door. We found him when he got stuck in it. What a pitiful sight."

I'm confused. "I don't understand. I went back to them after the alien was dead." Apart from that I listen to Decepticon radio and Nitro would have loudly spread his escape.

The manager winds up to the spot on the surveillance video in which the alien is electrocuted just before the power fails. You can clearly see that I don't wear my necklace there.

"Yes, right there. I had left my necklace with him when I hid in his cell from the alien. After that I went back in the dark and took it back. He was still there, for sure. He wondered what was going on and we exchanged a few words."

"At his place."

"Yes."

"In his shackles."

"Yes I think so."

"Have you checked the shackles closely?"

"I ... no, why would I? He kept his arms close to his body, just like usual. It was dark. I thought he was still in the shackles."

The leader leans over to me. "Then I say you were lucky and got him on his good day."

I ... don't know what to say. "What about the other alien? The one in the foyer?"

"We sent it to the laboratory for an examination. Thank you, that's all for now. You can go. If you notice anything unusual or if you need personal protection, call this number. The Transformers are extremely dangerous, and they may want to take revenge for your involvement in the project."

I look at the business card that he pushes across the table to me. "But ... that is where I report alien activities every week?"

"Really? Then the robots had already visited you?"

I sigh and don't feel like explaining it to him.

"No, no, all right. Okay, I'll call as soon as they show up." No, of course they wouldn't do that, what would they want from me? I was always polite to them. Other than that I would rather handle them alone.

He leads me out the door and I can continue my work for now.

It is not until late in the afternoon that I hear the bad news that the alien's body has also disappeared from the laboratory.

And after several days, when the excitement has already subsided, I receive the announcement of Nitro's successful escape only a little late.


	7. Seldra steals a Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Predator is obstinate. Seldra is making new plans.

Another working day is over. I haven't heard of the Decepticons since they fled - better for them. They just want to be free. As long as they don't bother me I'm fine with that. I am not that important that I'm worth a visit.

My boss said he thought I was safe in the laboratory. He's worried about me, but what can he do?

I unlock my apartment door and want to drink a delicious, hot tea. Just do nothing and forget everything around me.

But as soon as I turn the key, the lock gives way. It is broken out, the door swings inwards.

Someone broke in, seriously? There is nothing to get from me except trouble. If I catch him. He also left dusty footprints.

Stop, wait. My pattern recognition cries out.

I hear a click coming from the depths of my apartment and jump aside just as a flash of lightning strikes the staircase next to me.

In front of me the stairs lead up. I sprint up. For the way down I would have to pass my open apartment door.

After a flight of stairs I wonder that I still have breath.

The advantage of my cheap apartment is that it is at the top in a building without an elevator. I take a look down between the railings and see the familiar distortion coming up, then I flee to the roof.

There he is, that alien hunter. What a frivolity to ambush me in my apartment. How am I supposed to sleep peacefully ever again?

When he rushes out the door, he looks around for me. The roof looks empty. I hid behind the door and have a split second to look at him. I can make out some details from this close.

Even before he spots me, I reach for the cannon on his shoulder. My tail whips forward, cuts the straps that secure his shoulder plate to him.

When he turns around, he strikes a blow before he realizes what I'm up to, and he hurls me and my loot away.

I fall back, roll over the armor part and stand.

How cute. How do you use that thing? I start to examine it with the intention of having it ready to fire when the alien rushes towards me.

Instead, he raises his forearm and shoots me with another cannon. I just have time to get the armor piece into the firing lane when the impact throws me back.

I am astonished to see the roof flee from me and I bend in anticipation of the impact, which takes a long time to come. The hard ground gives way springily - the roof of a car - nevertheless, the impact pushes the air out of my lungs and I roll down from the roof in panic to take cover. There I peek coughing over the car, the alien cannon in my hand pointing to the roof of the building. I try to make out the outline of the camouflaged alien on the roof, but I see nothing. My breathing and heartbeat are slowly calming down, but I'm still in danger here. I have to get out of here.

"Itsy, open the car."

The little Con leaves his hiding place around my neck and climbs down my arm, which I hold to the door lock, while I keep an eye on the sky above the roof. After a few clicks the door is open. I let my gaze wander again over the surrounding street, which at this time looks like extinct - still no sign of the camouflaged alien. The slight air distortions, which are all that his camouflage leaves of his exterior, are difficult to see even in good light. Then I open the car door and sit into it. I throw the armor with the weapon onto the passenger seat.

"Itsy, make keys."

Itsy crawls to the ignition switch, pokes around with his thin legs and transforms them into a suitable key. The car starts, its AI greets me with a hello on the screen and introduces itself as Mercedes.

"Mercedes, play Get Out from Dance with the Dead."

I accelerate. Oh, the car knows the song.

"That bastard. I'm going to kill him. I just don't know how" I scold angrily about the hot tea that I deserve hard and which I am now denied.

I drive straight ahead, always slightly at the speed limit, my eyes constantly looking nervously to the left and right.

Itsy uses Cybertronic beeps to ask if I'm okay.

"Yes, I'm fine. Thanks." I give the little one a smile and bend slightly in pain. Apart from a few scratches and bruises I got away pretty well this time. "I have only a slight headache and the burning sensation in my muscles already eases."

I captured an alien weapon on the pro side. On the contra side I do not know how to use it and I can no longer enter my apartment.

Itsy asks, "Should I write to your boss that you won't be coming to work tomorrow?"

"Oh, no thanks." The night has been very exhausting for me, but it doesn't seem serious enough to report sick because of it. Yet again. "Can you find out who owns the car?"

Itsy leaves two of his legs as a key and crawls to the glove compartment, but finds no indication of the owner's identity.

As we leave town - just keep going, just get away from here - Itsy explores the rest of the car. It's amazingly clean and tidy.

"Okay" I say. "It's alright, I'll take care of it tomorrow."

We finally stop in the quiet parking lot of a rest stop when I decide that we have driven far enough and I switch off the engine. The alien couldn't have followed me that far by foot. Nevertheless, I let my eyes wander again. The collection of other cars and trucks makes us seem unsuspicious here. The nocturnal field that surrounds the rest stop looks scary.

I climb into the trunk from the inside and look for a first aid kit to change the bandages of my burn injury, but I can't find one - that's irresponsible. Hm, I don't have my burn ointment with me anyway. Then I'll take care of it tomorrow morning.

I climb back into the driver's seat, lean back and close my eyes. Although I am dead tired, sleep is far away. I'm still too nervous.

"I can't sleep. A predator is nearby." My human instincts keep me awake. I feel exposed here in the driver's seat - it's so open on all sides - so I crawl backwards spontaneously followed by Itsy and make sure that I can open the trunk from the inside as a possible escape route. Then I pull Itsy towards me like a hard teddy and at least force myself to rest until morning.

"Do you remember the day you were built?" I ask Itsy. He shakes his head. I enjoy the privacy the car gives me and I get chatty.

"I was chained in the dungeon on the planet where Headache had crashed with me. In the cell opposite me, my machine body lay like a mockery, separated from me by two grids and out of reach. I sat there leaning against the wall, struck by my battle against the bounty hunters, too weak to sit alone, chained and helpless. I saw no other chance, so I pulled new life out of my Spark, your brothers and sisters. I spat them near my feet and watched how they reacted. If they hissed at me, I would trample them with the hoe. I couldn't risk that they would attack me and I didn't have the strength or time to take care of their education. There was no other way. The little metal I had left was slowly running out. My left leg, my right arm were already sagging and I started to use up my left arm too. And suddenly you stood there. You didn't hiss. You looked at me only from big, curious optical sensors. I said, 'Bring my body to me' and you looked around what I meant and ran through the bars to the other cell."

I grin. "You were far too small and weak and the body didn't move a bit. Then I called to you just to bring the tip of my tail and I noticed that my wrists slipped out of the chains thanks to the missing bones. I crawled to the grid where I received my tail tip. The rest is history." I'm hugging Itsy more tightly. "It was a horrible place. You were the only good thing about it. You are there for me when my need is greatest."

Itsy replies "You saved me, too."

"Yes, I know. When Headache had grown to the point where she could take me away from the planet and I went on board, I heard you call me. I turned and decided to take you with me. I leaned out of the tailgate, while you jumped on the head of this Evil Overlord and from there into my arms, he used some spell that would have killed me if Headache hadn't closed the gate in time. I was blue and purple, badly injured in the ship for weeks as if he had torn every single vein in my body. But you were there and took care of me and everything was fine." I smile at the thought and sink into a light sleep.

When it slowly gets bright the next morning I feel that my sleep is over. I crawl back into the driver's seat with tired eyes and shivering. It is still quiet outside.

"I dreamed I was trapped in the research facility" I tell Itsy. "And Nitro Zeus in a lab coat put a necklace around me to download my secrets." I laugh. "How absurd." Itsy crawls silently into the passenger seat and says nothing about it. I explained the concept of dreams to him, but for Cybertronians it's pure theory.

I take out my smartphone, which caught a few jumps in the display during the fight yesterday or maybe even when I fell from the roof, and switch on the nearby public weather cameras in search of the subtle air distortions that indicate the presence of camouflaged aliens. This is like looking for the famous needle in a haystack, but it is not clear whether there is a needle at all. The Decepticons are still pretty quiet on their radio channel.

I start the car and make my way back to the city.

Following a sudden idea I ask: "Mercedes, who do you belong to?"

The car shows me a name and a phone number.

"Itsy, write him a message with my smartphone and explain it to him. That I stole his car to escape an attacker and I will bring it back immediately."

I rub my tired eyes with one hand and try to concentrate on the street. My smartphone vibrates when it receives the owner's response.

Itsy sums it up: "He writes that you can keep it for now. He has several and doesn't need it."

I frown. "That ... is strange. Nobody is giving a car away to a stranger who wants to steal it. Ask him what he wants for it. And if something is wrong with the car."

The silence lasts only briefly. Itsy replies: "He writes, he will let you know when he needs the car back."

I sigh. What am I supposed to do with a car and also with such a big one? I take the bus to get to work. Although it is quite cumbersome to walk to this research facility, where I recently spend half a week. And sometimes completely on foot when an alien attacks me again on the way.

Maybe it wouldn't be bad to have a few horsepower to compensate for my physical weakness. Even a strong alien creature does not survive an impact with this vehicle without damage. I start to like the thought. I already have a few ideas.

I don't dare go home for the next few days. I properly report the damage as a break-in and get a new lock installed, just so that the neighbors do not wonder. Then I let my traces fade and from now on spend the nights in hotels, a different one every day.

It takes several days to hack the alien weapon so that it shoots straight at least at the push of a button. The technology is not Cybertronic, otherwise I would have made it in less time.

Last night I was lying in wait in the sewers with the alien weapon until a lonely alien critter came by. I should give them clearer names, but for more than hunter-alien and ugly alien-critter, I'm not willing to spend the effort.

In the morning I drive my new Mercedes to a workshop where I can work undisturbed in a quiet corner. My smartphone is in the driver's seat and streams a 24/7 news program.

"Here, Itsy, look here." I apply my self-mixed paint on one half of a piece of sheet metal. Then I drop some alien blood on the untreated half, where it eats a hole into and drips to the floor, then on the paint, where it remains indifferent.

Itsy doesn't know what to say.

"It's one of the best moments in our life" I say. "We are together, have a good time, everything is peaceful. They are these little moments that make life worth living if you only recognize them. Are you happy?"

"I always like to be with you" he replies.

"I have a job for you" I say, looking for a suitable brush to apply the paint. Of course, I asked the owner for permission beforehand. "I want you to look up data about the stability of the car, especially the windows. I want you to calculate what damage an alien would do."

Itsy gets to work.

While the news program blares away, I climb onto the car with bare feet to paint the roof.

Itsy finished his task quickly, did a thorough calculation and sent me the result. I see the alien's tail piercing the window and penetrating deep into the driver's seat. I am changing the parameters because we only estimated the power of the alien and cannot be completely sure about the stability of the glass, but in general it looks bad.

"The car is a little too weak." I am slightly disappointed. "Then I have to dodge if one of them attacks." At least now I know.

Without further ado I paint the windows with the clear, light gray paint - one weak point is enough.

One question remains: What do I do with the tires? They remain a target for the acid blood.

I would love to mount a cannon on the roof of the car to burn the aliens in properly, but apart from the fact that I cannot afford it, I would certainly not be allowed to do so.

We are sitting in the car in front of a hardware store. I am considering getting a Geiger counter. I still have the problem that it is difficult for me to recognize camouflaged Cybertronians, but I suspect that my own radiation would mask the signals of the others. Therefore I have to rely on my eyes and my mind and look around thoughtfully.

Then I discover a paintball shop across the street and I get an excellent idea.

A quarter of an hour later a box of paintball ammunition joins the stuff that I am collecting in the trunk. I tear open the bag, unfold my pea shooter and replace its ammunition with paintball bullets.

"We are weak compared to other Cybertronians. If it were pure firepower, we wouldn't have a chance" I explain to Itsy. "So we have to get creative in fights to have a chance."

I'm trying to aim for a water can in the trunk, but I don't want to make the car dirty and plan to test the new ammunition at the next opportunity.

"My weapons are weak and my flying skills are grotty, but I am small, can dodge and climb well. Let's take Mohawk. He is small and agile like me. If I flee into a sewer or ventilation duct, he can follow me. But he can't fly, so I can escape him by air. Then take Nitro Zeus. He can fly, but he's too big to follow me in tight places. So if they attack me together, then I have a problem. I could try to take Mohawk off and hope there is a narrow escape route nearby. Or I take Nitro off and then get out of there."

After a moment of thought I add: "To be on the safe side, I play through the battles in all possible variants in simulations, then I use the tactics that most likely lead to success. Hold on. Mercedes. Play Christina Aguilera - Fighter."

I just want to withdraw into the simulations as announced when the car reports that it cannot find the song.

"How can you not find Christina Aguilera?" I sigh. "Well, then play Nina Sublatti - Warrior." It doesn't know that one either. How's that possible? "Blue Stahli - Not Over Til We Say So." Hard sounds play from the speakers. "You find that one, but not Christina Aguilera? Unbelievable. Itsy, I swear to you: the reason why human technology causes so many problems is that everything is based on Megatron. These devices simply don't want to work with us."

I remain silent for the duration of the song as I run through a few arena battles against the three escaped Decepticons.

"Dreadbot is a problem. If I don't take care of him, he'll run up and kill me when I've finished the other two. If I take care of him first, one of the others will kill me" I summarize my findings. "I know them well from the research data, so I'm very sure I'm right."

I grin sheepishly. "So as long as not all three attack me in an unfavorable place at the same time, everything is fine."

I'm getting serious again. "The alien parasite hurled itself at me with its body. I want you to learn that, too. I will also teach you to make contact with other systems to switch them off like I do." I add with a somber grin: "You may be small, but whoever messes with you will be surprised big time."

I am on my way to the research facility when the car stutters and gets slower. I can barely steer it onto the hard shoulder. I try to start it a few times.

"That cannot be" I say aloud. I get out and open the hood, see if I find an obvious problem, but there is no smoke or a fire crackling, that's all I can say. Then I google the symptoms and check a couple of the connections.

I get in again and try again a few times without success to start it. The displays look normal - I'm clueless.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I ask the car as if speaking to myself, but of course I don't get an answer. Since I would otherwise be late, I angrily slam the door and walk the rest of the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not put that much effort in checking if the songs Seldra picks make chronological sense, because I thought nobody pay attention to that detail anyway. I might replace some of them in the future.


	8. The Hive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra's new combat strategy is not going as planned, but at least she can collect footage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Xenomorphs do Xenomorph stuff. Blood, gore, etc.

On the way home I walk back to the car. I just want to get in when I see a movement from the corner of my eye. I turn around - but there is nothing. Yes, there is definitely something. The air distortions are harder to see as long as they are not moving.

Understood. He watches me, follows my tracks. He never met me at home anymore, now he's watching where I'm going for the night. Waiting for an opportunity to attack me.

"Is everything okay?" Itsy asks, since I haven't been moving for a while.

"Shh" I make. "He is back." And put Itsy in my hammer space. Slowly, calmly, I open the car door and slide into the driver's seat, I consult the map on my inner system. I need a plan. I need a place.

"Mercedes, play Steve Jablonsky: Hunted." This is from this Autobot propaganda film, I laugh to myself.

Unfortunately he doesn't find the song either. Too bad, it would fit best now. "Okay ... then Michael Jackson: Thriller."

I drive the car to one of the cheaper areas. The bushes that grow on the side of the road, the garbage cans that are rarely picked up and in front of which full garbage bags gather, abandoned cars and rusty bicycles, everything offers a lot of cover. Nearby there are a couple of teenagers hanging out on a playground.

Here I put the car to the side and reach for the alien cannon in the bag on the passenger seat.

I carefully peek out to the area from the dark car. As expected, soon I discover the air distortion approaching over the roofs. It slides down the bricks on a gable roof and remains above the gutter.

"Well, don't get yourself stolen" I say to the car and get out at the other side. The slamming of the car door makes me hear music in my mind and Michael sings: "You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run." Yeah, I'm proving the opposite.

I walk stooped behind the row of cars, near a small park that borders the playground. There I aim over a car roof and look for the air distortion. It has now jumped to the next roof.

So, you son of a bitch, it's your end tonight. I shoot - and miss it. The explosion makes roof tiles fly in all directions. Hopefully nobody links this to me. It is the alien weapon. I will say it was the alien.

I missed it and it rolls elegantly on the roof. I run to the green area and take cover behind a tree. From here I shoot again, two or three times. He jumps down. I rush from one tree to the next while he takes cover behind a corner of the house and returns the fire. I crouch and it rips half the tree apart - not a good protection.

The young people were driven away from the playground by the noise. I'm going through some simulations. Slide, wooden house, climbing frame - not good hiding places. The best thing is to run to the next tree and fire back. Five, six, seven, eight - I stop counting. He just can't be found with the camouflage, but I tear holes into the ground, into the street, into walls and cars.

Actually, I want to run to the next street to take cover behind the cars, but - oops - the gun just clicks. Empty?

I half jump to the side, dive into the deep entrance of a cellar, where I helplessly fumble with my weapon. Crap, how can it be empty? There is not even a facility for reloading.

Above me, behind the railing, the alien presses on his forearm and the camouflage falls away. Crap, I lose.

I drop the gun and grope around for a better one. My hand - finds a beer bottle. I can make it. As soon as he aims I will transform, while the flash strikes the door behind me and hopefully he is blinded, I will jump up, smash the bottle on the railing and slit him open with the sharp stump.

But instead of shooting, he raises an arm and points to me.

Um, what does he want from me?

Since I'm just looking at him in confusion, he makes a movement with his right hand as if something is growing out of his left forearm, then he forms the right hand to a pistol before pointing at me again.

I am slowly beginning to understand that he is pointing to my left forearm. "Um, you want me to use my own weapon against you? Does that look fair to you? Wait, I'll show you something."

I hold the forearm in front of me to avoid any misunderstandings, then I unfold my laser pointer, remove it and hold it with the muzzle towards me to the alien.

He hesitates briefly. Takes it, turns it to all sides before his visor. Then - I don't know how to describe it - he hangs his arms in a gesture of disappointment before he carelessly throws the laser pointer to my feet.

As I put the laser pointer back in place, the alien pulls out a wand and presses a button - a fold-out spear. He throws it to me. I miss it clumsily and it falls on the floor in front of me. In that time, the alien extends blades from his wrists. When I pick up my spear, the alien takes a few steps back and holds the blades in front of him in a challenging manner.

Oh, he wants to fight. That will be funny.

I slowly come up the stairs. Look out of the corner of my eye to check my escape route.

Then I raise my right arm and open my pea shooter. "Got ya." I fire the whole magazine of paintball bullets against his helmet. Even if some of them miss him, enough hit, that splash him thickly with pink paint. I quickly transform, take the spear with my tail - if he only attacks me when I have it with me, that's fine for me - and hit the road. Not far, only to the next manhole cover, where I make sure that the alien is watching me so that he can follow me and I jump down. From here on I am blind and have to rely on my map.

Unfortunately, the plan does not work out as expected. The hunter-alien follows me into the sewers, but he routinely shoots the black alien critters with his plasma cannon, which I see bursting in the glare of flashes of light in the dark. Note: I have to do it smarter to lure him down.

I bring myself to safety in the water - experience has shown that the hunter cannot find me here and, as expected, he walks past me. Unfortunately I now have the alien critters on my heels and when the hunter has left and is not an immediate threat, they turn back to me, circle me, hiss. One follows me into the water.

I climb out and give myself submissively and obediently, just like last time. They shoo me down the aisles, sometimes get so close that I think they'll really kill me, but as long as I obey, they don't make the threat come true.

They are forcing me into a tunnel. I know what's coming. The tunnel is new to me and I see nothing beyond the reach of my hands, since I am writing down the map as far as I have explored the route and I put a simulation of the familiar surroundings on my eyes. But I feel the few degrees of temperature difference and I hear my echo, which sounds a little dull here. I can already hear the sound of an egg opening and the slimy creature liberating itself to jump into my face.

But this time it is different. I am beginning to get the impression that they are learning. This time one of the adult aliens comes into the egg chamber just before the parasite falls off my face.

I just want to ask myself what he wants now when he starts shooing me forward again, as soon as the other creature lets go of me. He steps behind me, hisses and bumps hard against my back.

I am obediently guided through the corridors, looking around for exits and expanding the map on my inner system.

He drives me into a larger room and stays like a watchdog near the exit. I hope that he leaves, but he doesn't move anymore.

I start looking around the room that doesn't seem to bother him and feel my way through soft, organic mass. Disgusting. I quickly pull my hand back.

When I pull out my smartphone to shed light on it, I start to realize where I have landed.

This is not just a room. This is a brood chamber for the second phase.

The next few days I try to get out of my memory and only the images that I take in that time remind me of the horror.

I filmed my face. The camera lamp made my face shine and covered my exhaustion.

I was nervous, searched for words, finally dared to whisper: "I can't get out of here. Do you see that?"

I swung the smartphone around to an even darker hole in the dark wall.

"This is the exit. And that ..."

I pointed the camera at one of the creatures that didn't respond to the light. It was only recognizable in the glow and reminded of a man-sized spider with long, thin limbs and shiny black skin.

"This is the guardian."

I pointed the camera back at my face. "Look here."

The camera swung towards the exit, the picture shaking through my trembling hand. Suddenly there was a screech. The camera spun around and filmed the creature, which bared its teeth towards the camera.

The image stayed on the creature, as far as you could tell from the shaking of my trembling hand. You couldn't see how the sweat of fear broke out of me. Nevertheless, after several seconds of trying to calm down, I forced myself to take another step, which was shown by a particularly large wobble of the picture.

The creature screeched again and raced towards the camera so quickly that I could barely react.

In the following shake you couldn't see anything anymore, you just heard my screeching: "No! No! I'm sorry!"

I managed to turn the camera in my direction. You could roughly see me lying on my back, the hideous creature above me. With a loud shriek it snapped at my face and I crawled back to avoid its teeth. That way it drove me ahead of it until it found that I was far enough from the exit. Then suddenly it stopped and jumped out of the picture.

For a few moments when I collected myself, nothing happened and my loud breathing was heard. Then the image straightened up, spun around to the creature that had taken on its observer position in the dark, and back to me.

I wiped the tears from my face and spoke in a trembling voice. "It won't let me go. I ... I'm trying to hold on. I'm waiting for an opportunity to escape. I can't give up yet."

My face appeared against the dark background of the camera. I struggled for words with a stunned expression.

"Look at that" I said finally, turning the camera around. The picture showed a wall on which several people were glued to the wall in a mixture of cocoon and spider web, so that only their heads remained free. They were all passed out, but in the background you could hear muffled screams from other parts of the sewers echoing through the corridors.

The picture drove over the entire row once and stopped on one of the people. I took a few steps sideways until I filmed him in half profile.

Nothing happened for several seconds. Then something moved in the chest area, the cocoon bulged. Finally, a small, pale alien creature bursted out of the chest, screeching in a surge of blood, leapt out and disappeared into the darkness, where the camera image tried in vain to follow it.

The picture turned back to the man with the chest now open. I took a few steps closer. Blood ran in small streams from the chest and down the cocoon. I made sure that the inside of the ribs could be seen in the picture so that no one doubted what had just happened.

My hand in the picture moved to the drooping head, opened an eyelid to show the fixed eye, and then put two fingers on his carotid artery. Then the picture turned back to me.

My eyes fixed on the camera and anger mixed with my fear. "If someone finds these pictures. You should drop an nuclear bomb on the city so that these critters don't spread. It would be best. Um, bye or something."

My face was so stained this time, you could see the dark shadows under my eyes even in camera light. My mouth was covered with blood.

Although my face was directed towards the camera, I did not have the strength to look into the eyes of my imaginary viewers and kept my eyes down.

"It's feeding time."

The picture drove around in a tunnel with a line of people glued to the wall. One of the alien creatures bent over a dead man on the floor. A small mouth shot out of the larger of the alien's and punched another hole into the dead. The small mouth remained extended as the alien crawled towards a man on the wall, put the small mouth over his mouth and forced the piece of meat into his mouth. It remained like this for several seconds until the man swallowed. Then it returned to the dead man.

I turned the camera towards me. "I have been here for almost two days. Some parasites were implanted after my arrival and have already hatched. I believe if humans are well fed, the aliens hatch faster." But I forced myself to smile. "My body gives them problems. I have eaten very little. It takes longer. "At least it's something."

I rubbed my face, covered my eyes so I wouldn't have to put up with the blinding light from my smartphone. "I don't know how long I have left. I can't take it any more and I'm fine ... But ... But I have to think about others. I promised to do my best to survive."

My emaciated, bloodstained face appeared in the picture. I couldn't stand the light and kept my eyes closed.

I whispered in a tearful voice, "This place is hell. Look at this."

The image panned over a mountain of dead bodies in various stages of decomposition that I was on. I was too exhausted to notice the smell. They all showed the distinctive cracked ribcage from the inside or had holes punched out.

Then the picture swung up on my bloodstained torso and back to my face.

"The aliens probably think I'm dead. Anyone else would have been killed by this. But I am not an ordinary person."

The image flipped to the summit, which was dimly lit by daylight coming from above. 

"Looks like it was worth the effort. I don't know if you can see that in the picture. The mountain is high enough to reach the exit. The lid is chained up inside here. I can open it to save myself, but ... Well, sorry, world. One exit more or less doesn't matter. I'll see you in a minute."

With my tear-stained face and smirched with blood, I stagger with my hood pulled deep into my face and one hand holding it over my mouth ... I want to go home, but I don't dare go home, so I look for the next best accommodation and slide my credit card over the counter. "One room, please."

The lady at the front desk stares at me in surprise. "Do you need a doctor?"

I want to pretend it's not my blood at first, but then she would probably suggest to call the police. "I'd be happy to borrow your first-aid kit."

I don't notice the puzzled looks that follow me around. I weep with joy and disgust at the same time.

Arriving in the room I reach for my neck to put Itsy down, but my fingers only touch bare skin.

My hammer space feels empty, yet I open my chest between all the blood - nothing, just the screwdriver.

I gasp for air, seemingly suffocating. Oh Primus, I fall into an icy hell. Itsy has disappeared. If I lost him in the Hive, I'll never forgive myself. Please, please don't do this to me.

I reach for my neck again, I go through my hair, I search my pockets - nothing but my smartphone.

With trembling fingers, I type a message while I make typos all the time and send it to Itsy, "Where are you?"

Every millisecond I don't get an answer stretches into a day. With every millisecond, I feel something inside me dying.

Something in my left arm stirs and crawls out. I scream and jump back.

Itsy clings to my arm so that I don't throw him away. "Here I am."

I sigh in relief, fall to my knees, send a silent Thank you to Primus. I press Itsy against me and shower him with tears of joy. "I thought I'd lost you."

"You took your gun off so I could have room in your arm, don't you remember? After you woke up."

I did that? Good idea, so Itsy doesn't get in the way of the parasite breaking out.

That's it, too much excitement, I'm all done for the day. I'm just gonna sit here and hold Itsy tight for a while.

Then I need a shower and take Itsy into the bathroom, where I put him on the shelf above the sink - I can see him there and he's sitting out of reach, I think to myself, while I give the toilet a suspicious look and close the lid for safety's sake. I hand Itsy my smartphone. "Please write a note to my boss that I'm back and need a few days off."

While I'm in the shower, I do a system check. In the process I discover an extensive map of the sewer system on my inner system. That's weird. When did I do that?

How confusing. I remember times when my human body was too badly damaged so I had to stay in bot mode until it recovered. I also remember times when my bot body didn't react and I had no other choice but to run around as a human. But that I walk around without noticing it? Why? How is that possible when my organic brain gives the orders? Hm, unless someone else is giving the orders. Let me look at the map again: No, I've explored the area, this is my handwriting. I was looking for an exit. This is beyond my understanding.

My machine parts are fine, but my human half is badly damaged. I've lost so much blood that I've gone into some kind of semi-hibernation, where my pistons take over the function of my muscles. Or to put it simply, I'm screwed. A normal person would have died.

When I leave the shower, Itsy informs me: "Your boss has replied: Where were you? I was worried. Is everything okay?"

It doesn't make sense to me at first. Okay. What does that mean: okay? I don't know if I'm okay or not right now. It depends on what I'm comparing it to.

I grab Itsy and settle down on the bed in the room after I lock the bathroom door.

As I look through my pictures on the smartphone to see which one to send to the boss as an answer, the newer ones seem strangely unfamiliar to me. When did I see these people glued to the wall one by one? When I discover a photo of a mountain of badly battered and partially decomposed dead people, I feel sick.

I can't remember having taken these videos, which all appear as black pictures in the preview, the file names meaningless. With shivers I call up one of the videos. I hear my voice whispering, see my own face, pale in the light of the smartphone. When my scream sounds, I stop the video in horror.

It is as if I am looking at a foreign person in the video. I want to force myself to keep watching the video to awaken my own memory of this scene, but something inside me resists, my thumb hovering stiffly over the screen.

I am not an ordinary person. I am not an ordinary person. I probably don't want to know, and the amnesia is a mercy. Filthy, ugly alien creatures

Instead, I just send pictures to the boss. The alien eggs. The people pinned to the wall. I almost send him a picture of the Mountain of the Dead, but I don't think he can bear it. So I just write: "Stay away from sewers and deserted places."

I send all three pictures to this government number where they're supposed to report alien activity. An anonymous caller tries to reach me, but the voice box switches on immediately. They want to know what the aliens are transforming into, so I send a photo of an adult alien, what they should already have, as an answer.

Something tells me they're not taking me seriously.


	9. Seldra transforms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange things are going on with Seldra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is there a prize for the dumbest chapter title in the Transformers universe? Then I would like to submit this one.

I take the bus and walk the last bit to where I left my car, only to find that it has disappeared. Oh my. Someone has stolen all my stuff and the car that isn't even mine.

The open, empty street intimidates me and I take cover in a doorway. I don't feel like it, but it's better if I take care of it now. So I send a message to the owner. "The car is no longer where I parked it. It has probably been stolen. Will you need my statement if you report it to the police?"

I let my eyes wander up and down the street - the coast is clear. However, I get the owner's answer surprisingly quickly. "Oh no, I happened to see it standing there and I thought you didn't want it anymore. You'll find it on your doorstep tonight."

What sort of a strange fellow prowls around this area? With the wealth that he's got a car more or less unnoticed in his fleet, I'd say he's a drug dealer or arms smuggler. It's best I don't ask any more questions.

In the evening I sneak into my street, keeping a close eye on the area, especially the roofs and manhole covers, and actually find the car there, which I take back into my care.

I called up my house simulation, as I sometimes did, to relax or think.

Now inland in the woods next to Primus' house there was a second building next to the first one, a black-green egg-shaped thing that reflected the sunlight dully. Since the simulation was under my control, I could simply remove it. But why did my subconscious mind come up with the idea of placing it here? What was the meaning of that?

I went there and found a circular entrance. The walls of the tunnel inside looked like molten lava. Or something organic. The touch was cool, the material was hard but bent slightly under pressure. The tunnel led into the darkness, probably a larger room, there I heard something big moving.

In reality I would disappear in no time, but this here was my kingdom and whatever was there could not harm me. Slowly I stepped forward and opened slots in the dome to let in light, and I let the sun rise.

Perhaps I would rather not have done that. The light gradually revealed one of the alien creatures squatting in this room, but this one was five meters high. Quietly it sat there, watching my coming. On its backside hung an organic bag, at least as big as the creature itself and I understood: That was the queen.

As the light crept further, it revealed the round formations to my left and right that filled the room - eggs. The memory was still too fresh, as my wounds had not yet healed. When several opened near me, four triangles each, opening on the top, I was in a panic and tore the simulation apart.

Back in reality, I gasped for breath and scanned the ground around me to make sure I was here, as if the queen from the simulation were grabbing me and I could cling to reality so she couldn't drag me back.

"Is everything all right?" Itsy asks me anxiously.

I'm checking my sensors. Half of them are offline. "Um ..." Like a fool I stare at the missing readings and I don't know what to say. Until I remember that people without these sensors can get the answer. Foolish. "Um, more or less. Something's wrong. There's an alien queen in my subconscious." That's nonsense, too, if I think about it any further. There's only me in my mind, the rest is my memories. There's no one in my subconscious. I'm just ready for a vacation, that's all. I need a break from all this alien stuff and a big portion of pink rainbow unicorns and other beautiful things to get straightened out. My human brain needs cat videos.

I don't have to worry about the sensors. Occasionally it happens because of damage. My machine half also has regeneration capabilities and if I compensate for the metal loss with a few screws, the sensors will return soon.

I spend my short vacation visiting the hardware stores in the city and buying screws that smell particularly delicious. This is difficult to explain. The smell reminds me of water, meat, crispy toasted bread or other tasty things, depending on the ingredients my robot half needs to regenerate the lost substance. Right now, it needs different things. When its hunger is satisfied, they will seem like normal screws again, without me understanding how they could ever have been anything else to me.

I also take good care of my human needs and get myself a camping stove to slowly spoonfeed my severely injured organism with soup, which I eat sitting in the open trunk in the sun. Slowly my body resumes its normal function, even though I still feel weak.

Although I feel good during the day, even though I feel normal, my mood sinks along with the sun. Shortly after nightfall I am already so tired that I drive home out of habit before I remember that I don't want to sleep there anymore. I look around in all directions, look out for the air distortions of a hunter, then I steer the car to a motel on the outskirts of town.

Even though I'm so tired, I can't sleep. I lie in bed and stare over at the bathroom door. No, that's not gonna work. Finally I grab my bedding and lie down in the car to sleep. You can't lock the bathroom door here. Those criminals.

I fall into a light sleep. Every time a car stops in the parking lot or a person walks across it, I wake up.

Until the eyeless face of an alien creature appears outside the window. The little mouth shoots out, smashes the window.

When I jump up I hurl the blanket aside and reach for the alien weapon, stand in position. Aim for the window.

The window is intact, my hands are empty - I lost the gun in the last fight. With a racing heart I realize that I was dreaming.

"Is everything all right?" Itsy asks.

I still aim at the window empty-handed. Just a dream, just a dream. Yet the darkness of the night seems threatening.

"Yes, yes", I answer, annoyed about myself. Do I have to force myself to sleep with my hibernation system? But then I don't get anything that my sensors don't perceive and they hardly get any input in human mode. I need my instincts.

Itsy is stepping around nervously. "Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry. I'll never do it again, I promise."

What the fuck did I do? I didn't mean it like that. It's not the fault of my poor little protoform. I spread my arms out to Itsy. "No, no. I did something wrong. Come here. It's okay." I give him a nice big hug.

"You don't look so good," Itsy says. "You're acting weird."

"Yeah, I'm ... This alien thing's driving me crazy. I overreacted. I'm sorry." I'm trying to be honest with my baby.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No, I need to deal with this on my own. It helps that you're just there." I have to pull myself together around Itsy. I would lose my mind completely without him. Maybe I'd feel better if I killed one of the aliens to regain some sense of control over the situation.

I look at my smartphone with eyes burning with tiredness. Three o'clock in the morning. But my heart is still racing and the attention is shining inside me like a lamp. Sleep is no longer an option.

Lost in thought, I call up one of the videos I recorded at the hive. But as soon as I hear my own screaming, I switch it off again. It's weird. I know exactly that I was there, but what happened there, I only have vague memories of. But that's what I need to know to devise a strategy to defeat them. "I can handle Decepticons," I say. "I've fought them hundreds of times. I know all the weapons and battle strategies, and I know what to do about them. But these alien things? I don't know. How can I fight something I can't even see straight? How do I kill something that kills me by hurting it?"

So I noticed that it's still pretty quiet on the Decepticon channel. The predator is still roaming around. But if they don't know the aliens whose pictures I had Itsy broadcast, I wonder what it could be.

I return the bedding, then I take a look at my sensors. Still offline. They need their time to regenerate.

I'm looking for the pack of screws, but all I can find is the empty bag. First I think they all might have rolled out-- all of them? - but even on closer inspection I find nothing. "How could you eat the entire pack of screws by yourself?" I wonder. Itsy is so small. With all that metal, he should have doubled in size.

"I didn't", he answers.

I show him the empty bag: "And what is that? I didn't do it either."

"I don't know, but I didn't do it."

What's wrong with him? He doesn't dare tell me the truth? I've never punished him for anything. Apart from the fact that he's never given me a reason to, I couldn't do it. "Okay," I finally say. "I'm not mad at you."

"I really wasn't. Please believe me."

I just sighed. It could only have been him, because there's no one else here but us. Well, never mind, I'll just get a refill and forget about it.

Because already I detect a moving air distortion nearby as a sign to leave.

Back at the office, my boss calls me over. Worried, he shakes his head. "Ms Sadr'khor, this cannot go on. You keep getting yourself into trouble."

What, me myself? He says that as if it was my fault. He says that as if I'm the only one who's been hurt by something.

I pull out my smartphone from my pocket and I call up one of the photos showing a line of people pinned to the wall. "That's not true. Here, these two colleagues got in the Hive too." I hold the phone out to him for inspection. "I'm just the only survivor."

He takes it out of my hand to zoom in on the picture. According to my analysis, there's been a remarkable amount of disappearances in the area lately, and now I know why.

"With all due respect, boss, I think the best thing would be to leave town."

"Have you reported this to the government?"

"Yes, they just keep asking me if they're transforming and don't do anything else."

He sighs. "Thanks for the information. Go back to your seat, I'll talk to some people."

But I don't want to wait for the government to come out of the woodwork. My patience has run out. This slayer crap that's been following me around, that I keep seeing out of the corner of my eye, running over rooftops, it's gotta die.

I drive into the forest in the morning, near the alien ship on a forest path. It is still light and I can see the hunter. Here I stop and continue on foot so that my car is not damaged in battle.

I know that the hunter is watching me and following me and I have my millions of calculations ready, but he does not show himself. Maybe I'm wrong. All the time I keep all my senses tensed, time passes, evening comes. Maybe I should turn back.

Suddenly he jumps down from a tree unexpectedly and lands near me without bothering to be quiet.

Calmly he lifts his camouflage. Comes towards me - curious, amazed. In a few meters distance he stops, lets his gaze drift down on me. Especially the area around my spark keeps his attention for a long time.

Aha. He has seen me from up close before the Hive and is expecting one of these parasites. Instead, Itsy sits there.

I take the opportunity to transform and jump towards him.

The hunter reacts quickly, extends his claws and with one stroke he knocks off the tip of my tail, which is racing towards him. Now it falls to the ground. He stands open, I reach for his hand.

At this moment Itsy comes out of the hammer space and hurls himself like one of the parasites in the face of the hunter. However Itsy is smarter than the parasites, climbs around the hunter's helmet and cuts the connections between helmet and armor.

Reflexively the hunter grabs the helmet to grab the little creature - that's my chance - I jump up and chase my claws under the helmet deep into his flesh.

Itsy and I jump off him simultaneously. He staggers, green blood flows out of his throat in torrents and drips onto the ground. But he remains standing upright. I signal Itsy to retreat and the hunter comes towards me with raised blades. The guy is tough.

But I do not have to do much. I wait, dodge him, keep him busy while the lifeblood flows out of him, yet I always stay close enough to pose a threat so that he doesn't get the idea of running away.

Eventually his movements become slower, weaker. It takes a while before he admits defeat. Then he stops. Slowly, almost ritually he takes off his helmet.

For the first time I see his face. Like the rest of his body, his face is covered by a scaly, lizard-like skin.

"Beautiful", I comment.

His mouth is enclosed by four mandibles that spread out and stretch a lizard-like skin between them when he starts to laugh heartily.

Then he starts to press around on the keyboard of his forearm.

"No, you're not doing that."

Quickly I jump up to him and tear him apart with my claws, slashing the tendons at the exposed parts of his arm and when I am sure that he can't do what he wants anymore, I tear his neck and all other parts I can reach and which seem important to me.

When he stops moving I work on him a little longer, just to vent my anger. Then I pause. Transform. Call Itsy to me. Pick up the tip of my tail. How do I know that the hunter alien is dead this time? I have to be sure.

I grab his legs and pull him away with me, towards my car to the forest path. The alien is heavy, I sweat heavily and get nervous the longer it takes. My arms get tired, I get tired, but I hold on until I pull him onto the path in relief.

Then I walk to the car, constantly looking around nervously before I get in and pull the car up. The alien stays where it is.

"Mercedes. Play Apocalyptica - Life Burns."

I'll get a hose from the trunk. I unscrew the fuel cap, suck briefly, pour gasoline generously over the alien, put a short trace away from him. Then I reset the car by a safe distance before I take out a lighter. In a short flash of genius, I remove the alien's firearm before setting the creature on fire.

I sit down in the car and watch with a strange mixture of emotions as the flesh of the alien melts in the flames in the light of the dusk. A mixture of satisfaction and disgust, despair and joy. The bang of some technology, which folded in the heat, tears me out of my stare and I look for the distance before his other weapons explode.

"That was my worst fight," I say. "It's never taken me a whole month for a fight, and on top of that it was an organic life form." I laugh. "How embarrassing. Don't tell the others."

Before leaving the forest I stop and climb into the trunk to reattach my tail with the tools, then we drive on.

At least Itsy and I finally have some peace, at least on this front.

On the way back the night sets in and I am still very confused from the fight. I need some quiet music. "Mercedes, play Late Goodbye by Poets of the Fall."

As the music plays softly, I chat with Itsy. "I have no idea if there are any Cybertronians around. I think some of them can smell each other or something."

I take the opportunity to teach Itsy another lesson.

"Theoretically, I could get a Geiger counter and tell by their radiation when they're very close, but unfortunately my own radiation covers everything. So I have to rely on my eyes."

I let my eyes wander over the other cars on the road. There are only a few on the road at this time of day.

"Mostly they wear their badge on the cover in camouflage to recognize each other. Otherwise it is quite difficult. A driverless car is a clear indication, but many Cybertronians have the ability to create a driver's hologram."

I smile. "So the clue feature I prefer, which I showes you last week is to tease them and see if they respond. Cybertronians are sensitive to insults from organic beings. But you should also be suspicious of driver behavior, outstanding driving skills or whatever, if they take strange routes or something."

I'm getting serious again. "Then there remains the question of what faction the Cybertronian belongs to. Mostly Autobots transform into colorful passenger cars and Decepticons into military vehicles and jets with big guns."

On the road ahead of us right now is a good example.

"Or take that one. If this were a Cybertronian, it could only be an Autobot. Only Autobots transform into junk like that."

When I hear a laugh coming from the car's speakers, I'm startled, so I hit the brake and clutch, pull the alien cannon out of the bag on the passenger seat and point it at the dashboard. The music stops.

Itsy is thrown against the windshield, rallies quickly and takes refuge at my neck.

My heart beats up to my neck. Oh, no. My car's a Cybertronian. Why didn't I notice that? I'm locked inside a Cybertronian. I'm at his mercy. He overheard everything. What did I talk about with Itsy here? Is he an Autobot or a Decepticon? Is he gonna kill me? Is he gonna give me to Megatron? Does he know who I am?

I'm so scared I can't even think straight, let alone catch my breath. I'll keep the gun pointed at him.

"Name and faction!" I demand loudly and try not to hide my anxiety.

I almost expect him to transform and attack me, but nothing happens, except he says, "I won't hurt you."

His voice is calm, almost mocking. He's not afraid of my weapon. I'm sure he hears my loud breathing, smells my fear. But that doesn't mean I'm harmless. I'm close to his nerve centre, and I'm willing to fight for my life with all means. In an emergency, I should be able to do enough damage to him to create an opportunity for escape.

When after a while no answer comes, I say, "Let me guess. You are an Autobot. A Decepticon would never drive a human around. With your size, you're military and of high rank, an officer or something. I'm too insignificant to be spied on. That means that you're hiding. You probably happened to be there when I fell off the roof and took your chance, didn't you?" I'm taking a break. "No, wait, you caught me, didn't you?"

He laughs again. "Lucky guess. Now it's my turn. You understand Cybertronian, but your blood is human. You know a lot about Cybertronians, especially Decepticons. You must be the human who's merged with the Allspark - Conmother."

My reputation precedes me. Every protoform has heard of me - at least under my Decepticon name. Here I am Seldra, and few know the connection between the two names.

I am so relieved that he is not one of those who know me personally.

"There's only one catch to your logic: I don't have the Allspark."

There's the silence again. I'm waiting for an answer, but he's confused. After everything I've told, who else could I be? But they're not up to date and this contradiction buys me some time.

Since it is quiet again and there is still no attack, I put the gun away. Carefully I put my hands on the steering wheel. I want to drive home, but it is as if I am giving him orders. How awkward. This night is too much for me. I'm at the end of my rope, my nerves are shot, and I let my face sink to the steering wheel. I'm putting this night on my list of the worst nights of my life.

"Let go of my brake."

I jump out of my head and pull my feet back. The car starts moving by itself.

"Any song, little one?"

I say, "Creep by Behind the Scenes."

I hear the line: "I ask the driver in front of me, but his seat was empty." There is no more fitting song when you're being driven somewhere by a Cybertronian in vehicle mode.

We stop at my door, right where I fell on his roof. Did he stand here a lot? I was always too busy scanning the surroundings and webcams for cloaked aliens to pay attention to the obvious.

I remain sitting and am unsure of what to expect. When I just wait and do nothing, the seat belt and the door opens. The car lets me go.

"Just get out. I'll expect you here in the morning."

I climb out with shaky legs. I slam the door and needlessly think about locking it, but no one steals a Cybertronian. Except me. Sometimes I'm surprised myself at what I can manage.

"Good night or something."

With quick steps, almost like I'm trying to escape, I make my way inside.


	10. The Owner of the Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra arranges herself with her car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Blood, Xenomorphs, self-harm

After a restless night, I peer secretly through the curtains the next morning. The car is still standing there in the light of the street lamps, motionless, waiting for me.

I try to remember everything I told in its presence and I feel sick. No, I don't know what he wants, but I am done with them.

I leave the lights off. Quietly I climb up to the roof and down the fire escape on the other side. A few people look at me across the street in wonder, but I ignore them.

Relaxed, I set off on foot. When suddenly a car stops beside me and opens the door. I jump.

"Hey, where you going? I'll drive you," it sounds from the empty driver's seat.

"No, thanks."

"I won't hurt you."

I put my hood down so he can't look me in the eyes, and I shake my head.

Finally he gives up, closes the door and drives away. I breathe a sigh of relief. Somehow, after all this time, I expected more resistance.

Actually I planned to take the bus home after work, but it's delayed. You can tell from people's reactions how much the delay is. Until five minutes they look from their watches to the direction the bus is not coming from and back. During the ten to fifteen minute period they scold the operator. 20, 25 minutes are not so bad anymore, because after 30 minutes the next bus comes - according to the schedule at least, but not today. 35, 40 minutes. Now the people are splitting up: Some call the central office, but I can tell from the scraps of conversation that they don't know where the bus is either. Some people leave walking when it is convenient. Some call a taxi. A few gamblers stay at the bus stop and hope that the next one will come.

My feeling, or rather my experience tells me that this is highly conspicuous and I join the walking faction.

I've just come a few streets away, in a quiet area, when I see one of the alien creatures scurrying across the street a block away.

Oh, crap. That's how far they've spread out already. I'd like to avoid transforming in the open road at all costs.

First, I'm going to retreat to a stairwell and look for webcams in the area. Do I have to jump into a manhole and walk home underground? That wouldn't be any less conspicuous. Is it too late to call a taxi after all?

Wait, wait. My eyes are going to the bell plates. The least conspicuous way out would be to ask for asylum here. Or in the next doorway.

I sneak to the nearest entrance, push against the door and look back. The alien appears in the street, stops for a short while listening and then slowly comes in my direction. Shit, he heard me but didn't see me yet.

Just now my finger is going through the doorbell signs as I think about who I should try it with or better all of them? Or does this cause too much noise from scolding residents who feel disturbed by bell pranks and ...

Then I hear the engine of a car I know well, which stops behind me and turn around. The door swings open. "Get in, human. I'll take you somewhere safe."

My car is back. My knight in shining armor. The alien's seen me and speeds up.

"No," I say.

"No?"

I get in the driver's seat and aggressively throw the door close behind me. "Mercedes, play Sunset Neon - Never Dance Again." Then I put my foot down on the gas pedal and head for the alien. "If you get scared, swerve," I advice the car dryly. I didn't put that acid-resistant paint job on it for nothing.

The alien sees us coming and jumps to the side at the last moment - but he didn't expect my car to make a jump in the same direction, catches the alien and buries it underneath him.

Maybe the alien's shell is hard enough to survive the impact with a normal car, but a Cybertronian has more bang with its higher weight. Nevertheless, I put the brakes on behind it, put it in reverse and let the Cybertronier drive over it again, again and again, until the alien stops motionless.

Then I put the car into the next quiet lane, switch off the engine and try to come to my senses again.

Then I sit silently in front of the steering wheel, look at the dashboard - the closest I can get to looking my conversation partner in the face. Well, I accept the situation: a Cybertronian is hiding at my place and needs me for camouflage. I really don't want to miss my car with all its comfort anymore. Maybe there's a chance we could get along. So far, it has somehow worked out.

"So, you've kept me in the dark all this time about what you really are," I realize. "You must have had to hold yourself back a lot when I called you weak, right?"

"I was very surprised that you bought the story from the owner who just happens to lend you his car."

"You know what's funny?" I reply cheekily. "I almost got a gun for you, which would've probably been much weaker than the one you already have."

We follow the silent agreement that he won't reveal his identity to me until I tell him about me. I agree completely, because I don't want to be drawn to one side or the other. But this way we sneak around each other, waiting for the other to say something that betrays them. I almost enjoy that - as long as it works in my favor, of course.

"For your information." I'm trying to salvage what can be salvaged, so I pull out my smartphone. "I know Decepticons from research papers. I can read their communication channel with the program on my phone. Here, let me show you."

I'm still about to unlock the screen when he plays an excerpt from one of my phone videos over and over again: "I am not an ordinary person. "I am not an ordinary person. I am not an ordinary person."

"Hey! This is private!" Tz. The Cybertronian has already diligently collected my data.

"You have a Mech-animal mode," the car adds. "You were built on a planet with very little naturally occurring Energon, am I right? Perhaps on Cybertron after the disappearance of the Allspark."

That doesn't make any sense to me. How could I have lacked Energon if I had the Allspark inside me? Besides, I took humanoid form in my first transformation and only later evolved into the quadropedal form.

"You, too. You're a little data kraken," I tease him.

"I have nothing else to do while you fight aliens for days on end."

"For humiliation, I would call you Margret. But Mercedes is already a girl's name."

"You shouldn't be so cheeky after sucking on my gas tank, you naughty girl."

My last fight with the hunter comes to mind. I put a hose in his gas tank to pour gasoline on the alien. Oh, Primus, how embarrassing. I begin to glow when I realize what I've done: I gave a Cybertronian a blow job. I'm gonna go bury myself somewhere. I'm etching my tongue out with alien blood.

"Did you at least like it?" I flirtatiously ask.

"No, but I'll gladly make myself available for further training sessions," he laughs.

My head bangs on the steering wheel. He didn't really say that. Oh dear.

For several minutes I have to endure the embarrassing silence. Then the car starts moving gently to drive me home.

"Would you like some music?" he asks.

I remember the one time he claimed he couldn't find a song. "You like aggressive music. If I ask you for a song you don't like, you pretend you don't know it."

I think about it. I can use that against him. "Mercedes, play Elizabeth - The Shades of Night."

But the sound of protest is emanating from the loudspeakers. "Forget it. The name "sounds like something out of pop music.

"Well, in that case I have to sing it myself.

He can barely get through the first verse before he surrenders. "All right, shut up. I'll play anything you want, but shut up."

That's what I wanted to hear. "Rick Astley - Never gonna give you up."

The car goes silent in a second of stunned silence. "I ought to spank you for that."

Yes, please. I'm gonna kick your ass. "Hey, you said you'd play anything."

"Leave it alone. I'll pick something."

There's some kind of noise coming from the speakers. Is that music already, or has the car broken down? "This is terrible. Turn it off."

"What about this one?"

It's changing. "It's just more clatter."

I hear a disappointed "hmph." I don't know what that was. "Then Sound of Silence. Pick a version."

We don't say a word until my front door.

When I get out, he throws after me: "By the way, I'd like you to rent me a bigger garage. with internet access." If that's all, Mr. Heavy Metal.

But I can't really sleep and while I'm lying awake an idea comes to me. Early the next morning, well before my usual working hours, I write a text message to the car to have it pick me up. Together we get the body of the run over alien and take it to the workshop.

"What are you doing?" wonders the Cybertronian.

"You'll see later," I answer mysteriously. "Thanks, you can wait in your garage."

But he doesn't like his narrow garage and prefers to wait here.

With various tools and utensils I detach the shell from the alien and crush it into a fine powder, which I mix with oil to form a paste.

If my machine half loses a lot of metal, for example through damage or if I fire a lot of shots, I get a hunger for metal that I can't resist. I perceive different types of metal as different smells and tastes until my need for metal is satisfied. My stomach is partially transformed into metal, but my palate and esophagus are human, which sometimes causes problems. However, this is how I know that the Cybertronic body absorbs metal. And my olfactory sensor makes me perceive the alien's armor as ... Chicken bones. No, like chicken dried in the oven for several days, hard and not to bite, but basically edible.

I sit in the car with a bowl of paste and put it on the passenger seat. "I would like you to consume this. It's acid protection for eating."

Of course, Mercedes has grave doubts about my actions.

"No, I won't try that," I explain with a smile. "I have a protoform to care for and can't take the risk." That doesn't exactly add to his confidence. Besides, I have to worry about my human body contracting any alien germs. "And Itsy is my last child. I will not endanger him with experiments like this."

I expected more protests and objections, but instead he says:   
"Hm, I thought you were one of us, but you're so damn human."

I am seriously confused. "What the fuck does that mean. What makes you think that?"

"Have you ever looked at Itsy while in robot mode?"

"I've seen Itsy in all kinds of situations, for better or worse." I'm sure I did, on the ugly-ass planet, when Itsy brought my body to me. I don't see the connection, so it's probably a distraction. "I made that paste for you. If you think your paint suffices against those alien things, that's your decision." So that's it for me, and I'm off to work.

With his new Internet connection, my car pulls up data all night long. He reads news of alien sightings in the city and suggests we get out. Is this a trick to get me to his leader? I tell him that I have everything under control and if he takes me against my will, I kill him - which gets me a laugh. Briefly I compare the data with my inner map. I know exactly where they are. If they continue to spread out like they have in the past, he's probably right.

Today I am assigned to a workstation in one of the alternative offices. A colleague has set up an office in a vacant room in her parents' house.

I press the bell and wait, but nobody opens. I ring the bell again. When I pull out my smartphone to call her, something moves behind the curtains of the front door.

The colleague opens it for me in a bathrobe. She looks pale. "Ah, good morning, Miss ... how do you say it?"

"With hiccups. The hyphen is silent." Oh, my jokes are obviously out of place in this situation. "Just Seldra."

Anyway, she hasn't managed to understand the meaning behind my instructions. "I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well. Come on, I'll show you around, then I'm going back to bed."

Through the front door we enter the living room, from which the kitchen to our right is only separated by a counter.

The colleague is leaning on this counter as if she didn't really trust her own legs. "Kitchen, fridge, drinks", she points briefly to get it over with quickly.

Across the way we enter the corridor. "The door here in front leads to the bathroom. Here on the right is the office. There's the bedroom. I'll go straight there. The stairs on the left lead to the second floor, there's nothing you really need. Two children's rooms, another bathroom. You can look around if you want to. No guided tour upstairs today."

"What's wrong, if you don't mind me asking?" The boss didn't inform me she was ill, or he'd have sent me somewhere else. I see no symptoms, no cough or cold.

"I don't know. Yesterday everything was fine, then I went to get a screwdriver from the shed and just passed out. Since this morning I don't feel well"

She puts one hand on her cleavage as if she was having trouble breathing.

I'm no doctor, but people don't just faint. Maybe she has cancer or a heart attack, I don't know.

"Maybe you should get checked out," I suggest. "Just to be on the safe side."

"Do you know what that costs?" She starts dragging herself towards her bedroom. "I'll wait a few days to see if it improves. Don't worry about me. Have fun."

She closes the door behind her and away she is.

Once again, I finished my day's work in five minutes. I like this house, so big and quiet, full of corners to explore. I let Itsy run around the office so I don't get so bored procrastinating.

Around noon I quietly explore the rooms on the second floor and skim through some picture books in one of the children's rooms. Finally I decide to have a look around the shed. Maybe something fell on her head - no, I didn't see any injury. Maybe some kind of gas escaped there. I'll look into it.

I find the shed in a corner of the garden, half overgrown by an elder bush. The door to the shed is only closed by a board placed crosswise. Inside it is dark, only through some holes in the board wall light comes through. With the help of the daylight, which only falls in sparsely in this corner of the garden because of the bushes, I roughly recognize the outlines of all kinds of disorder: garden tools, more tools, cupboards with even more stuff in them, a row of old bicycles ... I feel for a light switch next to the door on the wall, but I end up with my smartphone as light source in my hand. First I search the ceiling - nothing special, wooden planks and cobwebs. But when I light to the floor, just as I see the dead Facehugger lying there, another one jumps into my face.

It takes until the evening to implant the parasite in my chest and to die. That's how long I have time to get annoyed with myself - I really should be more attentive when I am wandering around in unknown places.

I pulled a cable out of the hammer space, connected it to my smartphone and wrote a message to my colleague that she should go to a hospital immediately - I can't type blind. Come to think of it, that might not have been a good idea. Maybe the doctors will manage to detect and remove the parasite and then the creature will run through the hospital. But she didn't listen to me anyway and just answered hours later that it wouldn't work and that she would eat something first.

I have seen so many deaths in my life. People come, people go. I am still a little sorry, but sometimes there is nothing I can do about it.

No, don't eat, I want to write to her and enclose a photo of a person in the sewer with a broken ribcage. But then I imagine that I was in her place. There's a crazy colleague who works at my place of work who appears and disappears at the most impossible times. She never attends team-building events, never talks about herself. If you talk to her, she talks some crazy stuff about the fact that the data streams look like pictures and makes some jokes that nobody understands. Now I feel a bit uncomfortable and want to warm up a can of soup, then she sends me disgusting pictures and demands that I starve, is that possible?

No, I'm dropping the smartphone. I can't write her this.

As soon as the critter falls off me, I document them both with pictures, then I go in the house. As expected, I find the colleague with a cracked ribcage in front of the dining table in the living room. The blood has splashed onto the white wallpaper in a large area, something I had never seen before in the darkness of the sewers, horrible. I take a photo of it, which I will send to the government as soon as I am finished here. I'm considering going after the alien or setting fire to the house. Hm, no, I can't send a photo of a crime scene to the government right before I set this place on fire. So I'd rather not do anything, and my gun is in the car, so I can't shoot around here any more than I can shoot at it. Whether the alien went through the toilet or outside through the manhole cover doesn't matter.

When I leave, I cover my hands on the doorknob with her blood.

My car is still standing in the place where I parked it. I'm sure he's wondering why I worked so late today.

I feel the slight feeling of tension, this pressure in my chest due to the parasite, which takes away the space from the other parts.

Just as I am about to open the car door with my bloodstained hands, it swings open by itself, just in time before I reach the handle.

For a moment I freeze with my hand in the air. Shit. I have an enemy in my garage.

After a short hesitation I throw myself into the driver's seat - I have no choice now. The door swings shut behind me and the steering wheel moves away from me a little, so that I don't touch it.

"You're a Decepticon," I say. "But nobody I know." Man, am I stupid. He called me "Conmother." It's the name the Decepticons gave me. The Autobots know me by my old human name.

"What makes you think that?"

"Do you deny it?" I reach for the steering wheel, but stop inches from the frame. The steering wheel almost comically bends and turns away from under my hand.

"Please be a dear and wash your hands before you touch me." A pack of wet wipes comes out of the glove compartment and flies into my face.

"I've only ever seen this disgust with human blood from Decepticons," I explain and wipe my fingers thoroughly - I need that anyway.

"Yes, you're right." And in a mocking voice he adds: "It took you long enough. Yes, you know me, can you guess my name?"

Ridiculous. If we knew each other, he would have kicked my ass at the first opportunity. Perhaps he's one of those who think they should be known for earning dubious fame on the battlefield.

"Please black out the windows." I get pliers, wrench, first-aid kit and knife from the trunk, the screwdriver from the hammer space, then I climb back into the driver's seat and pull Itsy out. First, I have more important things to take care of.

"Itsy, light and mirror."

The Con would see my mechanical guts, but I must not care. I wanna go home for the surgery, but it's too far away. A hotel is also out of the question, I would be worried that the alien would disappear not in the toilet but in the rooms of other guests - a catastrophe.

Routinely I insert the wrench into the slot on my chest to keep it open, but with what I discover this time I have to look three times. The metal inside me has become stained - no, no rust. They are black stains that shine slightly dull green in some places. I knock with the pliers against them and it sounds dull. I've never seen anything like it before, is it some kind of Cybertronic disease I'm not familiar with? Too bad there's no way to find out, I think sarcastically. No Cybertronian I trust enough to ask him about it.

"That doesn't look healthy," he comments unasked. It sounds like there's nothing else he can say about it, which doesn't help to reassure me.

I routinely open up my inner life while I can literally feel the Decepticon's curious look tingling on my components. I open the cocoon and grab the parasite inside with my pliers, then I carefully loose it - again I am overcome by a slight panic when I hit a vein and my red blood is gushing out - calm, calm. Maybe it's something like the umbilical cord and there's no other way to remove it. Somehow he must get my nutrients.

The parasite screeches and writhes with amazing strength in the grip of the pliers. I make a movement towards the window and the car understands and opens it. Before I throw it out, I lift a few fingers from the knife and shape them into a pistol that I point at the parasite, the Decepticon understands and when I throw the parasite out, the car exposes a cannon and destroys it.

Out of consideration for the weak Decepticon mind, I lay my bloody knife on my lap before I stuff a few gauze bandages completely into my lungs and close everything up again.

Take a deep breath first. Okay, deep is not possible because of the bandages, but at least breathe.

"I've only seen a gun like this on Shockwave. You're probably the same type."

"And how many Decepticons of my type do you know?"

I'm not sure I can answer that. I don't classify the people that I know by type of weapon.

Besides, now I look at the knife in my lap. The tip is missing. I have to look three times to see if it is not an optical illusion and hold it against the light, coming to the same conclusion: The tip is missing. The edges look oddly round and smooth, as if dissolved. I would blame the alien parasite for this, but that didn't happen last time.

Something is going on here. I feel like I'm standing one step away from the solution, like a punch in the neck with my nose, but I can't get at it.

Finally I open up my inner life again, only to find that the gauze bandages look as gnawed up as the knife. Shit. I'm freaking out over here. What the fuck is going on here? There must be a logical explanation for this. What, my robot body can absorb matter as well as metal? Is this working through my blood now?

"Well, you certainly lost me, human," says the car. "Or whatever the hell you are. Some strange animal."

"Seldra", I correct him, after I close up my inner life and get a little air. "Would you be so kind as to take us away from here? If you don't mind."

"You're right, we don't chauffeur people around. We walk our pets."

"I am not your pet!" I protest.

"You people have these cats that roam the streets and come back with battle scars, huh? That's who you are." The car laughs and starts moving smoothly.

"And you are like ..." I want to respond with something similar, but I can't think of a talking car that's not cool. "You're consuming too much Internet."

"I watch YOU on the Internet all day long." Good, I give him that point.

Itsy wants to jump on my lap, but I say "no" and send him in the passenger seat, for safety. He understands.

On the drive home, I'm thinking about who he could be. He always mocks my attempts to unmask him. As if I should know him. Is he famous? I thought I knew the most important of them, but now I'm not sure. Maybe everyone with a big ego thinks you should know them.

"You've been on Earth for about two and a half years," I realize. If he'd been here longer, he'd know me from when I escaped with in the Allspark. If he had only been here recently, it would mean he had been on Cybertron before, during my presence there, then he would know me much better.

"Yes, roughly since the events in Chicago. Did you hear what happened in Chicago?"

"I heard you attacked the city.

"That's a lie. None of us have been there."

I remember the info from my boss. And the news footage I had seen of the city. "I saw photos of Cybertronians in the city and videos of people digging up Cybertron weapons in the rubble."

"The Autobots were there. If you want to know what happened there, you have to ask your friends. All I can tell you is that because of what happened there, people are hunting us all."

This thing stinks. The Autobots aren't destroying a city. If I'd known that earlier, I could've asked them. "They're not my ..." Shit. He tricked me again. He laugh.

After a while of silence, he asks, "Are you gonna keep your hands up all night?"

And before I think about what I'm actually saying, I say, "My hands never get tired."

"That's what she said."

That finally gets the point. This penchant for dirty jokes - that can only be one.

"You're Nitro Zeus." Intermission. First I'm done talking, but then another flash of inspiration and the pause gets a dramatic effect. "You weren't standing outside my door by coincidence when I fell off the roof. You've been spying on me, probably since you broke out of the research facility, right?"

He laughs again. "That took a long time. I told you I'd come to you."

Did he? I can't remember. Maybe I wasn't listening properly because I was preoccupied with the other alien species that are still more relevant to me than the Cybertronians.

"You faked engine trouble when I went to the lab. You didn't want to go there out fear they'd recognize you there."

"Yes."

I laugh in shame. "I'm sure it was entertaining for you when I speculated on how our fight would go."

"Although, mind you, you're miles off. As I said, I have no intention of harming you. Aside from the fact that you would pose no challenge to me, you've been busy sabotaging the research on us at the lab." Yeah, yeah, that's typical. They always underestimate me and then they're surprised.

"It wasn't because of you", I say softly, almost as if I didn't want him to hear it. "I can't let the humans get their hands on your weapons. If you were about to get your hands on technology that would make you superior and I could prevent it, I would." This has all happened before, it's all happening again.

"Speaking of technology. Your mechanics don't look healthy. What do you say we go to Megatron and let one of our doctors examine you? I'll put in a good word for you."

I can't tell which word scares me the most, "Megatron" or "doctor" or "examine".

"Never mind."

"What's your plan then?"

I'm still too busy with my current injuries to make any plans. But the mention of it reminds me that I just climbed through the inside of the Com without decomposing it. I dare to touch my own clothes, then I reach for a water bottle and take a sip. Everything remains intact. I dare to take Itsy in my lap. So it's nothing with my skin.

"I'm going to sleep and I'll see tomorrow."

Already, Nitro drops me off at home and leaves to his garage for a night's rest.

"Hi, Nitro."

I close the door of the garage behind me acrobatically with one foot. My arms are fully loaded with snacks - potato chips, chocolate, peanuts for me, screws in various shapes for Nitro Zeus. A six-pack of cola and a canister of machine oil dangle from my wrists.

"Do you fancy a TV night with snacks?" Since his new garage has Internet access, I have to take advantage of that.

Nitro Zeus transforms from his vehicle mode to his robot mode, where all my stuff falls out of him. His upper body is heavily loaded with weapons, yet he moves with ease.

"Human, look, I'm just temporarily hiding out here until your government stops looking for me. If I make friends with you, you'll only be sad when I leave you."

Oh, but I can't settle for that. This may be the last night we spend together before the city goes to hell. Well, by my calculations I don't believe in it, but it will go on for weeks or months with people disappearing or being found dead, before the government realizes that their measures are not enough and takes the helm. But you never know.

I drop the snacks on the floor and pick up a bag of screws. You want friendship? I'll give you friendship. You'll be the one who'll be sad when I'm gone. "That doesn't stop us from just having a nice evening together." I open the bag and I hold it out to him with a mischievous smile.

He leans in with interest. "Do I smell destronium?"

"It took me a while to find a type of screw that contains notable traces of it."

"I love it. How do you know that?" He rips them right out of my hand.

"That's my job."

While he's gnawing on screws, I set up the projector.

"We're watching Game of Thrones. You're gonna love it." Megatron liked it, too, at last. What better thing for a Decepticon to watch than humans slaughtering each other.

I put my jacket on Itsy on my lap and hand him a screw to nibble on. He's too young for this show.

Nevertheless Itsy worms his way out in between and I finally let him watch some parts that I consider suitable for protoforms at his age. After all, he is not human - the psychology of Cybertronians behaves differently. I try to sense into my machine half what is suitable for Itsy. The mating behavior of humans causes the same reaction in my machine half as, say, a mating of frogs or fish in my human half - interesting, but completely foreign. "That's getting laid," I explain Itsy in memory of his question about my dinner with my boss.

"Why would your boss want to do that with you?" asks Itsy.

An embarrassing silence falls. I can feel Nitro's gaze burning on me - already I hear him leaning over me theatrically, the acoustic sensor receptively directed at me, ready to pick up a secret. "Interesting. Tell me more."

I can feel the heat building up in my cheeks. "It's none of your business," I reply brusquely.

Just now Viserys says, "I'd let all 40,000 of his warriors fuck you and all their horses if it would give me what I want."

Then Nitro, who has been holding back so far, throws in: "By Primus, you humans are so disgusting. We would never do such a thing."

"Because you don't have the biology for it," I reply coolly.

"You are wrong, human. I'd like to enlighten you, but we don't share that with other species. Perhaps when we get to know each other better."

I spent a year on Cybertron and never saw anything like it. Plus I pulled Itsy out of my spark and I'm well-versed in the Cybertron reproductive cycle. I have seen the power of the Allspark in action and I have seen the factories on Cybertron where the protoforms hatch from the pods that grow on the plants. I can't say that, of course. "You are robots. You are being built, not created. I don't believe a word you say."

Nitro just laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't believe in interfacing robots, but I've been corrupted by the Internet. Thank you, Internet.
> 
> By the way, I've been thinking about how Nitro shows emotions with his weird face, if I may say so from my limited, human point of view. This is the result:
> 
> Nitro Zeus angry:  
> 
> 
> Nitro Zeus smiles:  
> 


	11. Examination in the Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldras and Nitro are leaving town. Oh, shit, it's Lockdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Minor Self Harm

I wake up disoriented. I am dog-tired, but I feel better than I have felt for a long time. When I open my eyes, a red light is shining at me from above, looking back.

"Well, are you comfortable?"

I start up from Nitro's lap. The blanket that was wrapped around me slides down and the cold air makes me shiver. Itsy looks at me from the bottom end. How did I get into this situation? Why am I doing this. "Um, sorry," I stammer and demonstratively move away from Nitro.

The small lamp still spreads its warm light, but the beamer is off. Sometime during the last episodes I must have fallen asleep.

"At night you do the strangest things in my presence", Nitro teases me.

Embarrassed, I realize that I have indeed been lying on Nitro in a particularly pleasant way, no nightmare has bothered me. This can't be true, what is wrong with me? This Cybertronian actually manages to tame the monster that is growing up in my subconscious. At least it was a human the last time.

While brushing my teeth on the water hose, I wipe through the news on my smartphone with the thumb of my free hand. Reports of deaths from violent crime have become the norm, but by my count they are skyrocketing now compared to the previous trend. I pay attention to keywords like "cracked ribcage", which usually include the district, and mark them roughly on my map. But a bunch of people are reported missing without the place being listed and I can't really evaluate them. The government advises people to stay in their houses at night. That annoys me a lot. If they paid more attention to my reports, they could have solved the incidents weeks ago.

Also, many readers' comments refer to alternative blogs ... For example a photo taken from a skyscraper on the city skyline, where I see an air distortion above the varied background of the houses and between blue sky and white clouds. For clarification, the streaks on the next picture are marked in color, so that even the reader with the worst eyes can see the outlines of a spaceship.

The other comments claim that this is an optical illusion caused by rising hot air. But I know the spaceship - now it is probably not in the forest anymore. Strange, I killed him, didn't I, or did he have friends with him? Did I really fight several of them instead of just one? They probably all look the same in camouflage.

"Today you're back in the lab?" Nitro asks me over here.

I spit the toothpaste down the drain and rinse my mouth out. "I changed my mind. Let's get outta town. Please put my stuff back."

"At last." Nitro is jumping up. "I thought I was gonna have to chain you up and carry you out."

Can't he stop for once? I can feel myself turning red, but luckily he's busy with my stuff right now and doesn't notice. I take a deep breath: Control, control, don't show any signs.

He just picks up the box with the paintball ammo and looks at it. "Do you really need all this?"

"Yes, this is my secret weapon."

He shakes his head and gives me a look of reproach. Occasionally, I admire the expressiveness of his optical sensor. "This is a child's toy."

I cross my arms insulted. "You say that NOW. Wait till I spank you with it."

"You need some decent weapons," he sighs, but sets about packing up everything by loading as much as possible into his arms and transforming with it, the rest he loads up with tentacle-like appendages, which he exposes from somewhere. How appropriate for a data kraken.

While he packs and while we drive off, I keep half of my attention focused on the smartphone and search the webcams.

Nitro suggests just flying. Oh, right, according to research documents he has a jet mode. It doesn't say anything about the vehicle mode. To which he replies, "Why would I tell people all about myself? They picked me up as a jet."

But I detect the alien ship hovering cloaked over the city and am against flying as long as the ship is nearby. It could see us and mistake us for prey. "Unless you are suicidal, you will remain on the ground. We may consider it once we get far enough past the town." I tell him about the cloaked aliens that only humans can see, Cybertronians can't, but since I conceal that I know both sides, he has trouble believing me.

On our way out of the city we get caught in a traffic jam and crawl only inches ahead.

In front of us is a Ford SUV, which I stare at the bumper. I wonder if Nitro is also looking at it and feel a sting of jealousy, then I realize what I am thinking - how embarrassing. I'm such a glitch.

"You all right, human?" Nitro asks. "Your body temperature is slightly elevated. Looks like your human half is sick too."

"If you start googling my symptoms and reading me lists of diseases I might have, I'm gonna kill you."

"Ever since you got back from your trip, strange things are happening with you. You should really get checked out."

Fortunately, he refrains from accessing the internet from here - too conspicuous - and I distract myself by continuing to play around with my smartphone, scanning cameras and reading messages.

Until Nitro interrupts me, "There's a roadblock up ahead."

Where the road leads out of town, there are a couple of soldiers and two men in black, Matrix-style with sunglasses, and they're there early in the morning. They check each car before they let it move on. That explains the traffic jam.

"They're looking for Cybertronians," Nitro says worried. Any trace of humor has disappeared from his voice.

"So what?" I don't see what the problem is. We've been wandering around undetected for weeks. "If they pick me up, you just do nothing. When I stand before you, they don't pick up your energon signature, do they? I let have them take me away. Then I'll burn everything down. Mercedes, play Leftfield - Open up." Open the door and burn everything down. But it won't come that far. They know me, I work in their lab.

"How did they catch you last time?" I suddenly ask, but Nitro can't get to answer. The Ford SUV in front of us is let through and drives away.

One of the agents dressed in black knocks on my window, which I lower, and demands my papers.

He looks at it intensely. "So, Ms Sadkor, where are you going? The lab is the other way."

"Well, it's only ..."

"And the car's not registered in your name either," he continues without letting me finish. "Stolen, huh?"

"It's borrowed." That sounds like an excuse - it really is - so it's no wonder he doesn't believe me.

"Get out," he demands harshly.

Slightly confused, I follow the order and slam the door behind me. The second agent approaches - with a Geiger counter in his hand, which turns over with joy when it sees me.

"Tz, tz", the first agent goes, as he continues to study my documents. "A Decepticon working as a hacker." The second agent mumbles something into his walky-talky.

"We're the good guys," I make it clear, but he doesn't care about my story with the radioactive drugs.

Instead, he pulls a document folder out of his pants and opens it. "Your perfidy is almost impressive. Reporting all this alien activity to distract from you, but you can't fool us."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I strongly disagree. "I have provided you with photographs to prove it."

I pull out my smartphone and bring up the pictures that he should already know. "This one was taken in my company's parking garage before we closed. This was in the lab ...

He takes it out of my hand and he looks at it. "You are disgusting creatures." Then he puts it in his pocket.

"Hey ..."

He shows me some pictures. "We found your fingerprints at your colleague's house. Her chest was cracked open and the walls splashed with her blood. I have seen many things, but the extent of your brutality shakes me every time."

"I found her like this. The alien parasites are responsible for this, did you look in the shed?" That pisses me off. I have to hold myself back from killing them on the spot, which would prove my guilt. "Give me back my phone. This is private."

"All these dead people with the same handwriting. Same stuff as in Chicago." He shakes his head with feigned sympathy. "What is wrong with you alien bastards?" What, Chicago? I should check it out sometime, but now my mind's somewhere else.

"You had one of them in your lab and you let him get away! I'm almost screaming with rage and disappointment. He can't be serious.

"This creature that supposedly entered the lab without our cameras catching it and vanished into thin air? We're still trying to figure out how you did this. Let me guess, some kind of hologram technology?"

Good, then have them arrest me. Then they'll see the killing continues and it couldn't have been me. Obediently, but with a sour face, I hold my hands out to him so he can handcuff me.

At that moment a black car comes from outside, brakes suddenly and slides, the last meters sideways over the asphalt, then jumps up and transforms. Lockdown lands with a somersault between the soldiers.

The people in the cars behind us screech and some of them run away.

I freeze in fright and forget to breathe. Shit, shit, it's Lockdown. I can't stop thinking about our last encounter. Oh, Primus, he was so angry after what I did to him on Mars.

That's the point: I call myself to calm down - this is the past. Lockdown doesn't know me here yet. He's not out for revenge - there's nothing to revenge. It's all in my mind.

With slow, confident steps he comes towards me. I want to run away, just run away. Even if it's not personal, he's damn dangerous with his huge arsenal of weapons. But I hide my feelings and do nothing, do not let him see my fear, do not give him any reason to attack.

He exposes a cannon and points it at me. "Name and faction," he demands.

"Mo..." I gasp for air and remember how to breathe. "Mother of ..." I can't say it. Nitro Zeus is listening. "... Robots. Botmother. No faction."

"Botmother, huh?" He looks down on me while he checks his database. "Sounds like an Autobot name. Tell me where the others are. Where is Optimus Prime?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying." He's flinching with the cannon. "I don't like asking twice. Where is Optimus Prime?"

My mouth opens and shuts. This is the end. Maybe if I tell him what I know, he'll believe me. "The last time I saw him was a couple of weeks ago," I stammer. "That was up by Stoneriver Forest. I ... he said their energon detectors had tracked me down. They took me to their secret base, I think it's near here, we didn't go far, but I don't know where. When the Autobots released me, they blindly drove me somewhere and dumped me again. I really don't know where they are."

Lockdown considered. He seems to believe me, so he's dropping his gun.

I take a deep breath. Itsy will grow up and fire a bullet some day - the thought of him dying at his tender age, after all he's done for me, even if I'm not there to experience his loss - no, that wouldn't be fair.

"I'm checking on this," Lockdown decides and turns away. "You can have her." He transforms and accelerates with spinning tires. They can have me - what does that mean?

"Turn around." The agent throws me against the car and forcibly cuffs me, even though I don't fight back. I am so happy to survive, the accusations fade into the background and I let myself be led away without resistance.

They take me to a laboratory similar to where I work - have worked. If this is no dismissal, I will quit. I ask them to call my boss to clear things up, but I am ignored. Until then, I will follow good old tactics and give in harmlessly and cooperatively, especially so that they refrain from punitive measures, which my human body, unlike other Cybertronians, would not survive. Somehow I do not trust humans to notice the difference in time.

Maybe I am wrong, because their first official act is to bring a small creature on a chain to me, which is wobbling towards me.

"Hey there."

It's a little humanoid Cybertronian that's just as high as my knee.

He hops on the table next to me. "Brains is the name. I'm supposed to be recording your data. I don't want to, either. Let's just get it over with."

"Oh, it's you," I exclaim in surprise, remembering the Autobots asking me about his whereabouts. "Your friends miss you."

"No kidding." He smiles at me with crooked metal dentas. "That's second nature to Autobots, you know?" He pulls out a stethoscope to listen to my breathing. I doubt he knows what he's doing, but maybe he doesn't take his job seriously, similar as I do. "So that settles the question of your factional allegiance. Hope you didn't kill any of my friends for that info, huh? What's your name, may I ask?"

I tell him the same name I told Lockdown: Mother of Robots. If they put me in their database and a Decepticon reads it, I don't want them to find my Decepticon name in it.

With reluctance I allow Brains to examine my inner life through the slit on my upper body, he also sees the scar on my lower left rib and the red burn scar that extends widely over my right side, but says nothing about it. Each scar tells a story.  
Instead, he tells how Lockdown brought him here. "I ain't going to mess with a guy like that. Offered me surrender, I didn't say no. Works with the humans, the son of a can opener brought me here."

"No shit." His metal fingers feel cold in my flesh. I hope he finishes soon.

"If you want my advice, stay here in the lab. It's safer. Food's not bad. Work is bad, but what work isn't?"

He finishes and he adjusts the lenses in front of his optics. "There's not even enough metal in you to make an engine, and with the organic contaminants, it's not worth the effort. I'll tell the humans to let you live. You can thank me later."

With one leap, he jumps from the table, where he turns around again. "By the way, your energon level is low. I'll give you about another 10 years. You should take it down a notch more often, beat up fewer Autobots and stuff." He winks at me theatrically, and I roll my eyes annoyed. Yeah, yeah. I know how little you can give on these data.

"Take care, see ya." Then he is taken away again and the researchers take me as a subject for their experiments.

One of the researchers wants to take a blood sample from me. He stabs a needle into my arm vein, but ... but nothing is sucked in and when he pulls out the needle, it's gone.

I freeze at the sight. What in Unicron's name is going on? That's not possible.

He dabs the drop of blood and tries again, same result. He gives me the evil eye. "Would you please not do that?"

I play innocent. "You already took a blood sample from me. Look in your database." But in my mind the knowledge screams at me: It's my blood that's corrosive like acid, just like the blood of those alien creatures. They infected me with something, an alien bacterium or a virus or something else for which there is no earthly equivalent. That explains my nightmares, the alien queen in my subconsciousness. That explains why half of my sensors are offline, the very sensors that take readings of my blood - they will never come back online. Allspark, I have no idea what's happening to me. Will it kill me? Will it dissolve me bit by bit? Is it gonna turn me into one of those alien things? Can it be stopped or reversed? How much time do I have? What can I do? I have no answers to this mountain of questions.

Then they measure my pulse - slightly elevated, I'm nervous - and my body temperature - also slightly elevated, but I won't tell them why. I wonder how Nitro is coping and I literally start to glow. Stupid heart. I have to go through it now and endure it until it passes, just like always.

Except for a few metallic organs and the thing with my blood, I seem human.

When they take me to my cell in the evening - a room with a bullet-proof glass front - I ask when dinner is served.

"Dinner?"

The lab is not designed for prisoners who consume human food. The researcher gets me some candy bars from the snack machine and promises to take care of something decent for the next few days.

After work, they turn off the lights in the lab. Immediately I am wide awake.

Night, darkness, creatures lurking in there undetected. I have to think about the last night I spent in the lab when the hunter alien sneaked in, past the surveillance cameras and the energon detectors, which are not designed for his species. Here in this glass cage, I don't even have enough room to move. Not that it would do me any good if I couldn't see the alien in the dark anyway.

But something else keeps me from sleeping. I cool my hot forehead on the glass, on the wall, on the floor. None of it cools satisfactorily.

I whisper to my necklace: "I think I have a crush on Nitro. You better keep that to yourself." Just in case he wonders why I'm acting weird. Weirder than usual.

Itsy asks, "What does that mean?"

"It means, if I see him, I'd like to take an iron bar and scratch his beautiful paint. Then I want him to spank me for that."

Is it my human glands that start secreting hormones into my body every time I think of Nitro? Is it a reaction of some machine parts that I don't know may act like that?

These huge weapons, the mighty chest, the powerful pistons that could crush me like a grape. Especially his jokes. I am so screwed. I hope he's okay. Hope it'll pass soon so I can get my mind to think of other things.

In fact I must have fallen asleep in between, because suddenly I am wide awake and a few hours have passed. It is the middle of the night, but I know that feeling. The hunter has come, the predator stalks through the dark facility, unseen by the cameras, unnoticed by the Energon detectors. I feel as if I can perceive his steps, irregular, crossing a room, then stopping and pausing, as if he is looking around. Then he cautiously sneaks on.

No, he doesn't. I'm losing my mind. Because I was attacked once in the lab in the middle of the night, my traumatized mind now believes it will happen again.

I try to sleep again. But the sensation remains. No, it's too real. I should at least consider the possibility. If I am wrong and he suddenly stands in front of my cell, where I have little room to dodge, Primus have mercy on me.

What can I do? I begin by exploring possibilities. Locked - attack - death. Locked - attack - death. Locked - attack - serious injury - death. All runs bring me to the same conclusion: I gotta get out of here.

Let's see, how do I get out of here? The walls are designed to withstand Cybertronians. There's no ventilation shaft, no cover I can open, not the slightest crack. Even if I had proper weapons, there's nothing I could do. The door lock has no opening on this side.

No, a Cybertronian can't get through here. Nor a human. But I have something else.

I make a small blade out of some metal from my body - at least I'm trying. It takes me a few tries to get it sharp enough. Then I prick my finger and press my blood against the door at the height of the lock on the other side. As expected, my blood etches a small hollow into it. After several drops the lock gives way - I am free.

Time to disappear.

Looks like I was wrong after all. Instead of the hunter-alien I expected, I meet another hunter outside.

It's more important to me to leave as soon as possible than to set the lab on fire as announced. I have just reached the road and want to make my way through the next manhole - still thinking whether I should really do that or whether I'd rather risk the overland route, but the decision is taken from me.

I don't hear the distant engine noise at first, but a familiar black car speeds up, transforms and Lockdown brakes with his feet in front, so that sparks fly as he exposes a cannon. Leaning back, leaning on the asphalt with his free hand, he comes to a halt and stands up.

I freeze, hiding helplessly behind the manhole cover, which I hold in front of me with my tail like a shield.

"Well, well, well." Lockdown takes a look at the building. I know that look too well. It is surprise, a feeling felt by many people who are unfamiliar with my unusual methods.

"I have determined it is impossible for Cybertronians to break out of those human cells. How did you escape?"

"Like this."

I jump into the hole in front of me, dropping the lid on top of me so that it falls back into place behind me.

The ugly alien creatures greet me. In fact, I can hear them screaming at each other, and I can feel their surprise.

"You can't escape me, Botmother", broadcasts Lockdown on the public Decepticon channel, causing some wonderment as to who that should be.

"My energon detectors are locked onto you. I will be there as soon as you surface. Just hide like a robotic rat."

I pretend I'm not receiving this - last time he thought I was an Autobot - run straight for the nearest nest, with the aliens who basically welcome this way not stopping me.

"Here we are again," I say and put Itsy into the hammer space of my left arm before taking a deep breath and holding my face over one of the eggs that opens willingly.

The parasite shoots me in the face and forces the fleshy tube down my trachea. Disgusting. I put my body into a slight hibernation to reduce oxygen consumption.

With my ugly alien mask I now grab one of the closed eggs.

Lockdown comes for me the moment I step on the surface? That's fine with me.

The drain through which I entered is too small for Lockdown, but there are others, bigger ones.

I hear the alien creatures screeching and following me on my way. I mean, to feel or hear something like confusion. Where do I go with their offspring?

Right here. I lay the egg under a big flap, then I transform incompletely, as far as I can with the parasite in my face, and open the flap a little bit from below.

"I see you on my screen," Lockdown lets me know.

Then I climb down again and take refuge behind several corners, where I wait until the storm clears.

By the time the parasite finally falls off my face, it's long since quiet. It is dark and I have to rely on my map, but in some places where there should be a wall my fingers grope into the void. When I find the wall again, they feel round and strangely uneven - corroded by the acid blood. Holy Moly, what a fight I missed here.

The rows of alien creatures have also thinned out notieable. I can hear their screeches echoing through the corridors from far away, but there is no one nearbx.

I find Lockdown in a cave that has been dug into the ground by litres of alien blood, at least the places I reach in the dark allow this conclusion and I hear an echo of my breathing sound that should not be there compared to my map.

Lockdown's green optics glow in the darkness. Oh, he's still alive. I jump behind cover.

The green glow follows my steps, but the expected exposition of a cannon does not come and no shot is fired. Instead, he turns on a spotlight.

"Congratulations, Botmother," he says dryly, almost mockingly. "Come closer. It's over, finish it."

I step forward into the blinding light and shield my eyes with my hand. Holy Moly, what destruction I have causes. Lockdown's entire lower body is missing, etched away. His upper body has several dark cavities where the light does not reach. His face also got a few splashes. There is not more than a stump left of his left arm, with which he supports himself and helds him upright.

So he still has his right hand free to make theatrical gestures. "Enjoy the sight. I admit I underestimated you, but it doesn't matter. Others will come and take my place. Today you may have won, but when the story of my defeat is told, the scum of the universe will come to see you to convince themselves of the truth. You will never have another day of peace, and it is only a matter of time before you follow me."

He thinks I'm about to give him the coup de grace. But I'm doing some calculations first.

If he dies, he'll simply leave the game. But if he survives, then new things happen: I'm safe from him, because he won't mess with me again as long as no one pays for my death properly - if he gets out of here. It looks bad. At the same time, if he stays alive, there's a better chance he'll take a few more aliens with him.

"I don't decide your death. If you die here, it's your own fault."

So I pull the alien screwdriver out of my hammer space, step to him and hold it out to him. "Here."

"What are you doing?"

I don't answer, instead I wait patiently for him to reach for it. When he does, the screws on his servo come loose and his digits fall apart.

Wordlessly I pick up the parts, put them back on his servo and repair him with the intelligent, cybertronic screwdriver that knows exactly what to do.

Then I press Lockdown the screwdriver into the repaired servo and think aloud: "Hm, if I were you, how would I get out of here ... I would leave the aliens alone as much as possible, so they don't see any danger in me. I would contact my people to let a crane in through the channel I came in through. To get there, I might be able to fix my legs, but crawling would also be possible if necessary. Then there are the remaining eggs under the entrance and the aliens attack me when they see their eggs threatened, so they have to leave first. Hm. I'd ask my human friends to come down here for a minute. I don't have to tell them they're gonna die. Well, at least that's what I'd do. Good luck."

Then I'm on my way, while the surviving alien creatures are still far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my original plan, Seldra was to be badly injured and Itsy was to show how badass he was by winning the fight for her. Seldra is taken to the KSI lab where Brains is assigned to repair her, checking her CNA and uncovering her true origins. But ... things have evolved differently.


	12. The Scrapyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra flees and finds a new home in a scrapyard.

I had already left the city when the consequences of my actions were realised. A few miles outside the town I broke into a barn to borrow some tools.

"Itsy, light and mirror."

Besides, I'm tracking the Decepticon radio.

"Hey, guys. The ass is gone."

"Are you sure? His ship is still there."

"His energy signature is weak and hasn't moved in hours. Looks like he got the short end of the stick."

"Which one of you did this? And didn't invite me?"

Radio silence.

"That leaves the Autobots. They spare their enemies all the time."

"That means ... we can party again?"

"Not so fast. The humans have their own methods, but at least we'll be able to have our own private conversation."

I see. Lockdown was the reason for their silence. However, I don't recognize any of the signatures - Nitro Zeus is not participating, is he OK? Oh, he surely will be fine, after all, he hid on his own before he let me adopt him. I should stop thinking about him. Really. I should stop thinking about him. I should try harder. It's just hard.

Next chance I get a new smartphone - which I buy from cash I take from some people on the way. Now I sit in the passenger seat of a truck whose driver is kind enough to take me a few miles.

"I had a fight with my mother, so I'm going to visit my father," I tell the driver when he asks me about it.

But I'm only half-heartedly participating in the chat and look through the latest news. The number of violent crimes, from my point of view the number of deaths by ugly alien creatures, has dropped dramatically. Interesting. Lockdown has killed enough of them to significantly reduce their numbers.

I recall that the agent said that the same pattern of deaths they saw in Chicago. So I dig up some old news and crime statistics from before the ominous incident.

The pattern ... looks different. Yeah, there were definitely reported murders by cracked chests - the ugly alien creatures' signature. But the period is much shorter, the statistics on murders and missing persons suddenly rise steeply, almost exponentially, and maintain the trend until the end of the reporting period.

While in my "ugly-ass city" it's a flat rise, an up and down, with the last drop clearly coinciding with Lockdown's intervention.

I sit back and think about the new data. The crime statistics give an indication of the spread of the aliens - more aliens, more deaths. Less aliens, less deaths. That means they could happily spread throughout Chicago. I suppose through the sewers, so that nobody noticed until it was too late and the catastrophe occurred, whatever it was. That means that something, someone else in the past decimated their stock in that ugly-ass city. The only ones I saw were the cloaked hunter aliens.

But what caused the destruction of Chicago? And what did the Autobots have to do with it, what were they doing in Chicago? Could they have destroyed the city to destroy the alien creatures?

"This is where you want to get out?" the driver suddenly interrupted my thoughts.

"Oh, yeah." I smile at him. He stops at a junction in the middle of nowhere, just wide, dry meadows around us and a few mountain peaks in the distance.

I open the door.

"It's none of my business, but ...

"Huh?" I turn to him.

"You sure you don't want a ride to the next village? There's nothing around here."

"No, thanks. I have an appointment here."

"With whom? There's nobody here."

Always these awfully nice people. He doesn't want money. He doesn't eat candy bars. What am I gonna do with him? I don't know.

With a pitiful face he assures me, "It's really no big deal."

"Thanks, goodbye."

I jump out and wave goodbye, then I pretend to be busy with my smartphone and pretend to call someone. As the truck pulls away, I wave at it with a smile.

I wait until he has disappeared on the horizon, then I walk on. Itsy is released from his necklace camouflage and is allowed to sit on my shoulder.

I breathe deeply the air of freedom. What lovely weather. No alien creatures in sight. I enjoy being alone with Itsy. "Let's go to Canada and hide in the endless woods," I dream aloud. "Or maybe we go to Alaska. Let's build a snowman together. "

It occurs to me that metal, as a good heat conductor, cools down considerably in snow. "Or not to Alaska. I don't want to end up frozen in ice like Megatron."

Itsy doesn't have an opinion on that, as long as he can stay with me and I'm okay.

I put an earphone in my ear.

"Mercedes. Play Bonny Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart." I call up the song on my smartphone. Hm, somehow it makes me yearn for my car, where I've spent so many hours inside. Where I ate, slept, cut out a parasite, fantasized about fighting ... When Bonnie sings "Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time" it is too much. Man, I am totally fender-bender. Instead, I stop the song and call Linkin Park - From the inside. "Take everything from the inside and throw it all away." Yeah, much better.

My nightmares ... are changing.

Last night I was sneaking through some bushes in the park. Snooping, searching, lurking. Smelling of prey. I saw a girl in short, purple sports pants, white T-shirt, yellow headband and sneakers running in my direction. A wave of sensation came over me: calm thoughts, she did not notice me. The fabric that rushed around her body while running. She ran past, leaving behind her a cloud of soft deodorant and sweat. I cut the path through the bushes, ambushed her at the next best spot. No one around. My heart beat faster as I prepared to strike. But then I tore myself away from the dream - a routine of my machine half, observing my body functions, had noticed something it didn't like and intervened.

I think I'd better stay away from people for the time being.

Since nighttime in combination with the nightmares is getting to me, I prefer to walk through the night and sleep through the morning until noon. Nevertheless, I do not stop noticing changes in me.

At first I notice it on my thumb, a dark area that slides slowly with my fingernail under the skin. At first I think it is some kind of battle wound growing out or a sign of oxygen deficiency - as far as my lungs have already been transformed into metal, I am surprised that I have not noticed anything like that so far. But after a few days I find the area too dark for that. At the thumb it first grows into daylight and I have to realize that it is the nail itself that grows back, discolored black. I ask the Internet, which illness this may indicate, but I find nothing that corresponds to it. When Itsy asks me if everything is okay, I don't know the answer. I push aside the faint thought in the back of my head that my nails have the same black and green coloring of the alien creatures.

I stop at a scrapyard. It is wonderful - far away from humans and full of hiding places. My spark enjoys the sight, my heart unfortunately not. I do not know what to do. The government will be looking for me.

Itsy looks at me expectantly.

"Let's have a few good days," I decide.

I find a place to sleep in the trunk of a wrecked car, which I can close and warm with my body. Mice and other sources of protein live among the wreckages. Dandelions, daisies and chickweed complete my diet.

Actually I am not really hungry, but somehow I hope to preserve my humanity by eating human food.

While I collect plants, I keep an eye out for small pieces of metal.

I give Itsy a small plate. "I have to disinfect my portion first," I explain embarrassed and throw it into the pot of hot water in which the plants are boiling. I made a fire from wood and oil leftovers.

Then I sit with Itsy on the roof of a wreck and we watch the sunset, me with a cup of soup. I concentrate on the beauty of the moment and forget the world outside.

"I feel happy," I say. "Are you happy too?" I must admit, I have difficulty recognizing his emotional state in Itsy's anatomy.

"I don't know. I fear for you."

"Try to forget that for the moment. I'm right here."

"I'm afraid someone will find you and take you away."

I gently nudge Itsy where the equivalent of his chin is located. "Not today. And I'll say this as many times as I can."

Itsy is silent. Maybe he's content with that because he gets closer until he touches me, leans against me, sits down. Peacefully we watch the sinking sun until my soup is finished and the cold night air makes me shiver.

Last time I was still sure that they were nightmares. Now at night I feel as if the ground of millions of little feet is vibrating. I try to crouch motionless, but the bottom of the wreckage beneath my feet is vibrating. Little feet, fine as hairs, run on the underside of the wreckage floor, causing small vibrations. Larger feet under the ground transmit their vibrations to the wagon via the axle. I lie down in the foot area to convince myself that I am wrong, but the sensation remains, but now it vibrates in my whole body. I cannot sleep, not even if I wanted to, too new and strange is the experience. Shit, what's wrong with me? I can't find a realistic explanation that would calm me down. Maybe what I've caught is slowly invading my brain.

I look at the crescent moon and ask Primus in my silent thrusting prayer what is wrong with me, whether I can continue to take care of Itsy or what will become of him, but I get no answer.

I am just teaching Itsy how to use the alien screwdriver - you never know what he might need it for - when I hear noise. First it's the engine noise of several vehicles driving to the scrapyard - which I ignore. Then I hear the distinctive whirring, that transforming Cybertronians make and muffled stomping that approaches.

I carefully peer through the windows of a wreck. Cybertronians. By their cheerful colors I recognize them as Autobots and soon discover the insignia that give me certainty.

I take cover and lean against the cold metal. Hm. This is awkward, are there any who know me? I couldn't tell from that short glance. It's better if they don't see me, at least not as a human. On the other hand, I think their energy signatures will outshine mine. I can transform in their shadow without anyone tracking me. I'm certainly not going to leave my hiding place just because of them.

My presence doesn't remain unnoticed for long. I refrain from taking any special effort to hide. For hours I can lie in front of a path leading through the scrap metal, waiting for no one to look, then pick up three small screws on the other side and wait again for hours. No, that would limit me too much. I even obviously climb a tower of wrecks once, to get an overview. Holy Primus - first of all the three dinobots catch my eye, especially the T-Rex, big as a six-story building, with his huge mouth with which he could swallow a wreck completely, not to mention me. I also see a Triceratops - dangerous, okay, but not that impressive - and a pterosaurus. A flyer with the Autobots. I'm certainly not leaving the scrapyard while he is around.

The Autobots themselves - I recognize Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. I keep my distance from them especially. Plus three more, a samurai, an action hero and a fat one with a huge arsenal of weapons. I also see two humans between them, a man and a little girl.

The samurai is the first one who sees me, who raises his helm and turns it in my direction, then the gunslinger and the dinos also look.

With an elegant twist, I disappear behind the tower of wrecks before Optimus can catch a glimpse of me, then I crumble into the cavity in a pile of scrap metal and transform into my human form.

When someone comes to check on me, they fail to track me down and I wait silently until they leave again.

I continue to play this game. I pursue my normal activities - collecting food, collecting water, playing with Itsy. When I sense someone approaching, I grab Itsy and hide where I wait for them to leave. Eventually they realize that I am not a danger to them, and their attempts to contact me decrease.

At least the ones of the robots do.

It begins to dusk and I - in bot mode - am roasting three mice on a stick above the fire - my dinner. Until complete darkness I will have disappeared in my sleeping hiding place, because unfortunately I have neither as a human nor as a bot a night vision. So even if I don't sleep, I hide at night and play around with my phone to keep myself awake until it dawns and I dare to close my eyes.

Then the little girl looks around the corner. "Little" is an understatement, she has roughly reached teenage age. She waits a moment for my reaction, but I ignore her.

"Hello", she says and approaches uncertainly. "I am Izzy. With two zees." Since I make an indifferent impression, she sits down with me by the fire.

I must admit that I don't know what to say at this moment. My robot voice sounds awful, so embarrassing. I don't want to say my name. Besides, she's a little girl. I can't say anything provocative or hurtful. What if she starts crying? I'm a Decepticon, not an asshole. Or even worse, what if I get overwhelmed by this alien bug and I kill her? I feel normal, but I guess everyone does. Maybe I will feel normal about killing people. But right now ... Well, my moral views have been debatable for a long time. It's not like I find killing people abnormal.

"You eat mice?" she asks slightly surprised.

"Of course. Meat contains iron. Would you like some?" I hold the stick out to her. She hesitates for a moment, then she pulls a mouse down and bites it hungrily.

The other two mice are mine, that's how it's done. Unfortunately, I can hardly taste anything in my machine mode.

"The Autobots want to talk to you", says Izzy and licks the fat off her fingers.

"I am a Decepticon", I explain coolly. "I don't talk to Autobots. You can tell them this is my scrapyard. I was here first. If they don't get on my nerves, I'll leave them alone."

"Oh, how cute." She spotted Itsy popping out from behind me. What, a human who thinks my baby is cute? That makes her actually likeable.

"That's Itsy. With t-s or t-z, I haven't decided yet." Funny, they have similar names. I grab Itsy, and I hold him in her direction. "Would you like to say hello?" The girl stretches out her hands expectantly, but Itsy climbs up my arms and hides behind my neck. Izzy lets herself sink down disappointed, but I just shrug my shoulders. "Not today."

I accuse her, "We're hiding here. since your Autobot friends wiped out Chicago."

"But they didn't!" Izzy protests. "They were just trying to help when suddenly the city blew up. They don't know what happened." What a pity. Who else could have done it?

The sound of heavy, pounding footsteps disturbs the peace of the evening. "Izzy, are you here?"

Before the blue Autobot is lurking around the nearest pile of junk, I jumped up and left.

Right now I sit in a wrecked car with a cup of soup. Here I am shielded from strange looks and can enjoy my breakfast in peace as a human being.

Itsy sits on the shelf and looks out the window. I follow his look - over there three protoforms are playing. My iron mother-heart blossoms - oh, how cute. The three dinosaurs got offspring. A little T-Rex, a Triceratops and a flyer, barely higher than my knee, romping around between the mountains of junk. One will stand, one will fall and others will follow - that's the circle of life.

"Would you like to go over and play with them?" I ask Itsy.

"Can I?"

"If you don't kill them?" I wink at Itsy. After all my upbringing, I'm confident Itsy can hold its own against other protoforms, but even better would be to test it in a safe environment. "Let me finish my drink first, then I'll accompany you."

At the other end of the junkyard, Autobots, dinobots and humans chill out far enough away. The dinobots lie lazily near their offspring, keeping an eye on them.

Itsy goes over to the protoforms alone, while I take an observer post in bot mode at a safe distance on a pile of junk, from where I can quickly jump in if necessary.

The three little dinobots pause in their game as Itsy approaches.

Daddy (or mummy) T-Rex also raises his head and casts a suspicious glance at me from red-hot optics, which I return. Yeah, come on over here, I'll flatten you, you'll see.

Itsy stops shyly. "Can I play with you?"

Little T-Rex is the bravest and steps forward to meet the new arrival. He nudges Itsy from the side, who springs back upright. Then he turns around and runs back to the others, who resume their game.

Papa T-Rex is calmed down and puts his head down again, the tension is released from me, too.

Itsy joins the group and can score in their play fights with speed and skill. All four are too young for real weapons and Itsy just has to watch out for teeth and spikes while he climbs over the others like a spider and confuses them. The T-Rex snaps at him once and Itsy hurls itself like the alien parasites with one leap to safety. I almost want to nod to the adult dinosaur and say: "That's my baby, you better watch out for him."

I'm too engrossed in watching the protoforms play that I don't pay attention to myself. Until a roar and a curse tears me from my thoughts.

It's the three Autobots: the samurai, the gunslinger and the fat soldier who cornered me. The latter, with the elegance of a boulder as he sneaked up on me, crashed into a tower of wrecked cars.

Shit, it's too late to get Itsy and get out. I'm jumping up ready to fight.

"Take it easy," says the action hero. "We just want to talk."

But I don't wanna talk. I haven't had a good fight in a long time and this looks like fun. "Why don't you come over here and I'll show you how I talk." I jump down from my vantage point and take cover behind that pile of junk. First I look around for an escape route, but the three of them have cut off all my ways, so I look for the best place to sneak up on them. The samurai seems to rely on close combat and the action hero on ordinary bullets.

"Whatever. I prefer to use Decepticons for target practice anyway," says the big green one. I have to watch out for his huge cannons. "What kind of guns do you have?"

"A world of terror. I'll show you in a minute."

"No, Hound," I hear the samurai's voice. "We will settle this peacefully by taking her to Optimus."

I got a much better idea. Instead, I'm gonna take HIM to Optimus.

I climb into a pile of junk, transform, and sneak up slowly as a little human. When I see the samurai's pedes, I jump out, transforming.

His reflexes are good. He draws his sword but hesitantly tilts it back when he sees that I am unarmed. I cling to his servos. My tail snakes harmlessly up his arm to his neck, connects to his system and I project a simulation from my memory directly into his RAM.

I bring the samurai into a simulation fed from my first arrival on Earth after my abduction - for me lying in the past, for this world in the future.

Earth, my poor home, was unrecognizable. I wanted to go home, visit my parents' house, perhaps visit the graves of my parents and wallow in memories and above all howl about the suffering they had had to endure when their only child disappeared and they never heard from her again, not knowing whether I was still alive. Perhaps they had had another child, perhaps they had separated and had gone their own ways. The last I knew of them was that they had reported me missing.

But I could no longer find my parents' house. Not the street, not the neighborhood. I couldn't even find the city. I knew by natural landmarks where to look, but in the 300 years, cities had swallowed each other and redistributed their territories. I couldn't recognize anything. Only a certain Sassa Street pointed with its name like a relic to past times, where once my home had been.

I wanted to weep for my lost past, but I didn't know where. There was no place for me in the world. Finally I started the long journey, fulfilled my mission, for which Headache in the name of Primus, the god of the Cybertronians, would bring me back to this time.

But what disturbed me most was what the Autobots had become.

The job Mars had got for me on Earth made it easy for me to find him. I met Optimus Prime in the mainframe of a data center, hooked up to thousands of cables that were attached to his head and torso as if he had fused with the computer.

When I entered, all I could do was stare at him silently.

Woken by the door closing behind me, he opened the optical sensors and looked at me. "Sara!", he shouted in surprise and rose as far as the cables would allow.

I quickly caught myself and corrected: "Seldra. I am now half machine. Never call me Sara again."

Man, I was so stupid. I was deeply impressed by the Earth's highly-developed artificial intelligence compared to the technology I'd grown up with. Driving assistants, vending machines, search engines, they all tried hard to understand the meaning behind the words, understood irony and innuendo, and made perfect small talk. Until I realized it wasn't artificial intelligence at all.

Optimus said, "How have you been?"

Anything I could say to him kept coming. I didn't know where to start. How I got along on Cybertron back then, hated by all the Decepticons who took every opportunity to screw with me. How I fought back. My escape from Cybertron, my arrival in the Kuiper Belt more than 300 years later and my detour via Mars, where I slowly realized that there could be no life among humans for me anymore and I understood that the Decepticons only wanted to save their home planet and had every reason to hate me for interfering in their war without knowing what it was all about.

And now I saw this: Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, wired up like a mindless machine. Where had he taken his people.

I couldn't make a sound, just stared at him.

"Back on Cybertron, you couldn't answer me," Optimus remembered. "You can speak freely here."

Yeah, I remembered that Megatron once allowed Optimus to talk to me by telecommunications. I had smiled and said it was all right, because in the presence of Megatron, I couldn't bring myself to show weakness by telling Optimus what I had to put up with.

But instead, I said, "You let the Autobots enslave the humans."

He calmly said, "We volunteered to work with them."

"Look at you, you're a prisoner here."

He sighed. "Sara ... Seldra, let me explain. Mankind created the technologies on which its civilisation is based after studying Megatron. All of this technology has the Decepticon's drive to subjugate mankind in its core. We Autobots take on the role of so-called artificial intelligence. We use our powers for the good of mankind and we follow moral principles. We protect the humans from their own technologies, in return we get their energy and we can survive - far from Cybertron, far from any source of energon."

That didn't convince me. Everything would have been fine if Megatron had used the Allspark to rebuild Cybertron. What was this life based on shame and stolen technology worth? Without Megatron, humans could have developed their own original technology.

But Optimus' question was still open and something was burning on my mind.

"A certain Creator has placed a bounty on my head. Bounty hunters have travelled from across the universe to bring me to him. Does that name mean anything to you?"

"There are a number of beings who claim to have been involved in the creation of the Cybertronians."

I picked out my wanted poster and threw it to him as a radio broadcast.

"Here, look at the symbols."

"Yes, I've seen them before. They once plagued Cybertron regularly, but not since our great war threw Cybertron out of orbit. They have not found us since. You should stay away from them at all costs."

"Well, how am I supposed to know what to stay away from unless you tell me who they are or where?"

Optimus looked me in the eye for a long time before he decided to answer. "I remember you well. You are brave. You're unstoppable once you set your mind to something. I can't give you the coordinates of their home system. Under no circumstances must them be allowed the Allspark. They are parasites. They would keep us on their farms like livestock."

Now I did something that surprised even me. "But it is destroyed. It was destroyed when the Cons tried to take it out of me."

"Yes? Then what energy do I sense in you?"

"This is my own spark. You see?"

I opened my top and pulled the skin flaps apart over my spark. A blue glow lit up Optimus' face.

"Hmm, it's different indeed. I remember the time you merged with it. You were still completely human. But this. This is new. And it feels different."

I kept my eyes down while he looked at my spark so he wouldn't read the truth in my eyes. At the same time I was so surprised that he believed me, I was thinking of a mistake on my part. Maybe I was telling the truth? Maybe this was really my own spark? Of course, it turned out later on Neo-Cybertron that I really did have my own spark that kept me alive when the Allspark left my body, but that was another story. Anyway, at that moment I saw it differently.

"All these years, we thought you still carried the Allspark inside you. "We have always sensed its presence inside of you. Now I realize it merely transferred its energy to you, making you one of us now."

He looked off into the distance, lost in thought, and I let my chest close again.

"The ways of our Creator are mysterious. I am truly sorry that we have drawn you into our war."

"Now will you give me the coordinates?"

He looked back at me. I asked harder than I intended, so I added, "Please?"

Optimus nodded and dictated. I stored them on my inner system and since my storage had been erased several times already, I decided to memorize them additionally.

I looked at the coordinates in astonishment when Optimus dictated all the digits. "But ... these are the coordinates of the barren planet where Lockdown wanted to bring me. There's nothing there. Are you sure?"

"Yes. This is the original source we traced them to in the past. We suspect they come from another dimension."

None of this made any sense to me. I thanked him, still keeping my eyes down, and said goodbye.

Outside the door, I clenched my fists in rage at what Optimus had done to the Autobots They were slaves to humans, nothing else. That's where his leadership had taken them. I never wanted to have anything to do with them again.

When I release the samurai from the simulation, I expect him to continue our game fight and jump a few feet away from him. Instead, he stops, just standing still, looking forward to the ground with an iron face, as if he were immersed in a dark meditation. I wag my tail back and forth as if hypnotizing so that he pays attention to me again and follows me.

The other two come around the piles of junk and watch the scene in amazement.

But the samurai only raises his eyes. "What was that?" he wants to know.

"A simulation," I explain. "That's how I last met Optimus before I ... that's the future, but as an Autobot, you shouldn't care?" He's an Autobot. Autobots want to protect humans at all costs, even if it means losing their homeworld. No idea what he expected.

Disappointed, I realize the battle is over and I get comfortable.

"What about the Decepticons?"

"Well, most of them die and a handful move on to a new home planet.

"They're free?"

"From what I've seen, yes.

With heavy footfall, the samurai turns and seeks Optimus. "Drift, where are you going?" the action hero asks.

Silently, I follow Drift. What's he up to? The other two change looks and follow as well.

Drift asks his leader a similar question. "Optimus. Is this true? Will you ... would you let humans hook you up to their computers and do work for them in exchange for electrical food? Would you advise your followers to do the same, to keep Earth's machines, descendants of Megatron, at bay, and help the humans to keep their technological standard?"

Optimus is taking his time with that answer. I read from his eyes slight confusion about the suddenness of these very specific questions and uncertainty about what his answer might do. "Earth is our new home and humans are our friends. If there is anything we can do to keep peace between us, to restore our reputation, which is mutually beneficial, I see no reason to oppose it."

"Even if it deprives us of our freedom?"

Another long pause. Optimus feels he's skating on thin ice, but he stands by his beliefs. "We have always enjoyed the greatest freedom, and used it for this endless war. If we give up a little of that freedom in return for giving humans the freedom to be a better species than we are, then that price is justified."

Drift is keeping his helm tilted down under the weight of this revelation. His fingers clasped tightly to his chest. "Optimus. I do not agree."

He swings. His fingers pierce his own breastplate. With a cry of pain, he rips off his Autobot insignia and flings it at Optimus' feet.

"I'm out."

Drift transforms into his helicopter mode and takes off. Quickly, he gains altitude and flies away.

"Drift, wait!" Optimus takes a couple of steps towards him, but doesn't reach him in time. Now he transforms, and he's off the scrapyard.

As if at a silent signal, the other Autobots transform as well and follow their leader. The man who interrupted his work when he noticed that something was wrong asks wondering what's going on, but they just grab their human companions wordlessly and take them away. After a short hesitation the dinobots follow them and take their protoforms with them.

I am stunned. Megatron once told me: Whoever understands the motives of the Decepticons, joins them. That their path was the right one. But I did not expect it to be so violent and obvious.

Now this is my scrapyard again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew a picture of Seldra.  
> 


	13. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra gets a chance to scratch Nitro's paint, hurray! Megatron has some questions.

I'm sitting at the scrapyard with a cup of tea, Itsy in my lap, enjoying the moment together with my baby. You never know how long it's gonna last. Right now, I'm betting my money my health will kill me quickest. It's important to keep good memories alive.

Slowly the sun moves across the sky, followed by the shadows that follow it between the pieces of junk. Do we have enough happy memories together? At least I do my best.

Suddenly Megatron sends a message: "Conmother, are you there? Answer me!"

What is the meaning of this? There's no way he could possibly know about me. Maybe he's sending on a whim, for whatever reason. The best thing for me to do is play dead and ignore him.

Itsy is crawling around nervously. What a delicious tea.

Megatron is broadcasting again. "Conmother, I know you're listening. Answer me, or I'll send out Starscream to pick you up at the scrapyard."

I'll choke on my tea, spit the rest out and cough. Shit, how does he know that? Nobody knows I'm here. Except the Autobots.

But I tell him, "Go ahead. This time I'm prepared for him. I'm kicking his afterburner."

A storm of excitement breaks out in the chat.

"Are you really Conmother?"

"The mother of bullshit is back."

"Hey Conmother, have you come to destroy the Earth? Leave some for us."

Then Nitro Zeus publicly sends to Megatron: "I'm close by and will bring her to you in three hours."

I almost choke on my own spit. And it's not just because of the message. Anyone can say that. But Nitro's message gets through to me so clearly that he has to be close by. I look up in the sky, worried, looking for signs of a fighter jet.

I am pitiful. Is my hiding place that bad? Did I leave so many tracks in my escape?

I send to Nitro, "Stay away, or I'll show you a world of terror." But secretly I hope he ignores the warning and comes for me, then I'll prove to him that I'm not to be messed with. I'll put a scratch in his paint. I had just gotten away from him, now the thought of him already makes me break down again.

I filter out the new messages from the Cons who make fun of my provocation.

However, Megatron sends: "Nitro, if she jumps at you, grab her by the tail, otherwise she switches you off."

I sip my tea in a relaxed manner. There's nothing left to lose. "Itsy. I'm gonna show you the third way now. The one that ruins their plans."

I send to Megatron, "No need to. I'll come myself. Send me your coordinates."

Itsy squeals with fright, but there's nothing I can do now.

In my time, when I sided with the Autobots, I ran from the Decepticons so many times, it was hopeless. You can't hide from them forever. The most I could do is delay the encounter - but not with Nitro nearby.

"Calm down, Itsy. Enjoy our moments together while you can. There's no point in running away now that he knows I'm here. Maybe he won't kill me right now."

Megatron sends me the data, and adds, "I'll expect you here in 10 hours."

I am half relieved to find that he gives the data in Earth units and Earth coordinates. I look up the location with my smartphone and feel almost ridiculous to be half machine using Google Maps in this cumbersome way. But it would be even more ridiculous if I used it directly. Hm, something is wrong, why is the point so far away? I know Nitro's speed from the lab data, and when he said three hours, I thought ... oh. Unless he lied to the researchers about his speed. Crap. Time is so short I have to fly out immediately and hurry to get there in time.

I hurriedly rush down the rest of the tea.

Then Nitro sends: "I'll bring her to you as promised in three hours," just as my well-known Mercedes stops in front of the scrapyard.

I drop the teacup in fright. How did he find me?

I hide among the junk, carefully peeking out of my hiding place.

Nitro Zeus transforms into his impressive robot form, equipped with many weapons - a bunch of stuff falls out of him, my stuff as I can tell - and looks in my direction with his red optical sensor.

"Gee, Conmother, I know you're there. Your phone is giving me your location."

He stops for now and laughs heartily. "You left a trail like a robeast in heat. First, Lockdown disappears into the sewers. That could only have been your doing. In motels you always check in under different, strange names, mostly with special characters that the software feels addressed by. You have a new phone and stream music that could put an army in a fighting mood - and this 80s pop music. I didn't even have to make an effort to stay on your trail. You're no challenge for my abilities."

No! That was stupid. I take out my phone and turn it off.

Then I send, so as not to give away my exact location by shouting, "You're not grabbing my tail."

"Not unless you're holding it out to me, you naughty girl."

Oh Primus, he didn't say that. I cringe in shame. No, he couldn't have.

When I don't send anything for a few seconds, he continues: "I'm disappointed in you. You told me you're not Conmother."

"I didn't say that. I said there was a flaw in your logic." I said that I don't have the Allspark, so he would draw the wrong conclusion. I don't dare send that out so the Cons won't know about that without me having a chance to explain the loss.

I can hear Nitro's mighty footsteps coming my way. On the jump I look around for an escape route and think of a strategy. Nitro Zeus can fly faster than me and fly faster than I can run. In the chaotic scrapyard with its many gears and stumbling blocks I have an advantage.

He shouts: "I'll take you to Megatron. We'll clear that up."

"Come any closer and I'll kick your afterburner."

He laughs. "You have no real weapons and no escape route. Surrender. I don't want to hurt you."

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you either," I whisper half-loud.

Finally, I have a plan. I set Itsy on the ground, pointing toward the pile of my stuff that Nitro dropped, "Bring me my paintball ammo."

Itsy nods and rushes off. I transform and sprint away to distract Nitro.

As expected he follows me, but immediately stops in surprise. This is the first time he sees me transformed, from relatively close by and with good light. "Oh, you are a protoform. Cute. And it explains so much." Now he starts with that nonsense, too. Is that supposed to confuse me?

I disappear into the wreckage of a bus, come out the other side and walk ducked behind a row of cars.

He says, "I've been following you since my escape. It was easy to find you over your phone. I wondered: How does a human being get a protoform?"

Nitro moves one arm to wipe away several car wrecks.

"I didn't happen to be standing outside your house by chance. When you landed on my roof I was gonna reveal myself, but then you stole me and threw that gun on my passenger seat, so I decided to lay low."

"Then you gave yourself away with your laughter. How embarrassing." And scared the hell out of me when the sound came out of the car's speakers.

"Actually, the snacks gave you away. Destructium is a typical Decepticon component."

I transform. As a human I crawl under a wreckage, slide up between car parts and hide in the cab of an old crane.

"Remember the time you sucked my fuel tank? How indecent," Nitro laughs out loud.

I want to paint my face red so that my blush is not visible.

Itsy is on her way over to me. I shoot my pea gun the other way. Nitro looks after the pling, at that moment I climb out the other side and crouch down next to Itsy.

"You said you were gonna win our fight. You still hold that bet?" I send.

I shove paintballs into my peashooter, then I transform and sprint past a passageway on purpose so Nitro can see me. He comes closer with loud steps.

"You ain't fighting. You gonna run away much longer?"

I step up on a car roof, I transform, and I point my peashooter at him. "I never run away."

A volley of paintball bullets hits his helm. The bullets burst, obscuring his vision with pink paint. I transform and jump down as Nitro now blindly approaches me as he wipes his arm across the lens.

"Enough is enough. Let's end this so-called fight before you try to tie my shoelaces."

Good idea, I'll have to try it. "Yeah, come on, I'm right here."

Just as he stops to locate me by my voice, Itsy reaches his neck and puts him to sleep.

The big colossus falls to the ground, crashing loudly into the wreckage of a bus. I rush over, take over and send him into a loop of Rick Astley's "Never gonna give you up".

There he lies, this big guy, motionless, completely at my mercy, so cute and helpless. I could do anything I want with him now.

I want to touch his face with my claw hand - but I pause in the air. I'm almost tempted to scratch the paint on his face. But a heart would be too conspicuous and I don't have time to come up with a better one. Maybe Megatron will do it for me because Nitro didn't keep his promise. I think about how he teases me about what I did to him when he was unconscious, and I'd rather not.

Then I go with Itsy to my camp and pack my things. Actually I don't need much, probably nothing and my capacities are limited anyway. "Only you I need", I add with a smile turned to Itsy.

I inform Megatron: "Nitro is a-f-k for ten hours. I'm flying to you now."

Megatron says, "Reactivate him!"

"But, Megatron, he attacked me."

"That's an order. You are in no position to try my patience."

Oh, boy.

I run to Nitro and contact his system. "Megatron orders me to let you go, so I'm only deactivating you for a quarter of an hour instead of ten," I let him know. "Thank him."

I set his loop on five repetitions and I'm outta here.

I really thought I'd make a good distance, far enough that I'd be undetectable as a crumb in the sky.

But suddenly Nitro Zeus is flying next to me. As a fighter jet he catches up as if it were nothing and then transforms into his robot mode in which he flies on.

"Is that all you got?" he asks mockingly.

Just you wait. I extend my peashooter and point it at him. Unfortunately, as usual, I get into a spin.

Heaven and earth revolve around me. I retract the weapon, switch off the engines, spread my arms and accelerate as soon as I have stabilized my position.

"Tz, tz", makes Nitro and flies beside me again. "What are you doing? This is embarrassing."

"I don't have those flaps like you use for steering."

"Elevator, rudder, airbrakes."

"Yeah. I gotta use arms and legs."

I expect him to try to grab me any moment and take me to Megatron himself, but he keeps his distance. I'm dreading the thought of landing when I'm about to make a complete fool of myself again.

"Can't you fly faster?" he asks.

"No." The engines of an ordinary Cybertronic avian work with combustion, mine with something like air pressure. Here's my theory: A fire-based engine would burn my human flesh, so intelligently I've developed a less destructive engine, which unfortunately doesn't have as much thrust. There's nothing anyone can do about it.

Most importantly, it drains my strength after a while. At first I think Nitro accelerates, but I am the one who slows down. I try to make an effort, give thrust to maintain my speed, but I feel so incredibly tired. I haven't flown this long in a row for a long time and had forgotten that I lack endurance. For a few more minutes I can force myself to fly, then I fall off noticeably. Now I am so exhausted, I just want to let myself fall and go to sleep in the sky.

Before that, Nitro flies up and grabs me.

"No!" I shout, but I am too exhausted to take evasive actions.

He transforms and puts me into a seat where he holds me down.

I growl angrily, but the comfortable seat quickly calms me down. Now that he no longer has to hold back because of me, he gives a thrust, so violent that it sticks me into the seat. Holy Moly, I am insignificant in the face of this power.

"The stories about you were true," Nitro says. "Your music is terrible."

"Nitro," I change the subject as I review our time together. "You always told me the truth, everything, didn't you? You told me you wouldn't hurt me, that you'd help me against the aliens if I freed you. Tell me, will Megatron kill me?"

"We are fair. It is never too late to apologize to Megatron. Just tell him where the Allspark is."

Like that makes it any better. But that's not something I need to discuss with him.

"Is Starscream with him?"

"Probably he is, unless he's out doing something."

Crap. Worst day of my life. No, wait, I'd rather think about it again.

First, I give in to the sweet lure of sleep.

As Nitro starts to land, the movement wakes me up a few seconds before he transforms and drops me to the ground. I kneel on the trampled, bare ground, still half confused by the sudden transformation and look around.

Nitro has dropped me right at Megatron's pedes. I freeze in the face of the red optics looking down on me. I'd forgotten how terrifying the leader is.

Next to him at a distance is Drift. There's the answer to how Megatron found out about me and my whereabouts. I couldn't have known that he was about to fly to Megatron to bend his knee, just because of a little simulation.

Drift comes forward, bows servos put together with a typical Japanese bow. Another one who has consumed too much human Internet. "Thank you for showing me the truth."

I stare at him wordlessly and think to myself: What have I done?

Itsy in my chest stirrs. The adrenaline made my mechanical heart beat faster, making him nervous. Calm down little one, I just think. Megatron wants to talk. Shit, Megatron wants to talk, what can I say? I can tell him where - when - the Allspark is, but it won't help him.

"Where is the Allspark?" thunders from his voice processor and I wince at the noise.

I would like to make a statement. The eyes of Nitro andDrift are upon me. "Um, can I talk to you alone?"

Megatron ponders for a moment, then makes a gesture and the others leave. Then I tell him everything, the whole story. Well, not the whole, whole story, just the stages that are relevant to him. My arrival in the Kuiper Belt, in about 300 years. My deal with Primus. My journey with the Decepticons to Neo-Cybertron. The transformation of the planet. The new war. Primus, who sent me back to Earth, to my time, in the time traveling spaceship Headache. Whereas, my time on Mars, the future Earth, the crash on that filthy planet, I'm leaving all that out. So there's "my" Allspark, a thousand years in the future. There's nothing I can do for him. And with a slight fright I think back to my time on Mars and ask myself: Did he know everything? Was that the future of the present Megatron, to whom I have told everything that will happen? What will he do to me now?

"I cannot believe that our Creator would let you go without His blessing," he says angrily.

"Oh, he has given me a pendant that will turn me into a full Cybertronian when my human body dies."

"That's what I tought."

"But I used it to revive Headache so I could leave this filthy planet we crashed on."

Megatron sighs. Then he says, "What have you got there?" I wonder what he means at first, and I look down on myself. Unconsciously, I put a hand on my hammer space to soothe Itsy. With trembling fingers, I take Itsy out. "That's my son."

Megatron stops. The longer he stares at Itsy, the more uncomfortable I feel. Eventually, Megatron reaches out and holds his servo to Ity. "Let me talk to your protoform in private."

I fear for Itsy, but the little creature looks up in awe, almost admiringly at the big machine, realizes, unlike me, what an honor it is and jumps on his servo with a powerful leap. Megatron lifts the little creature in front of his optics. "Conmother, leave us alone. Stay in the camp."

Uncertain about where this is leading to, I leave them, constantly looking back to them. I stand in sight, ready to intervene should the emergency require it.

Nitro joins me. "You're still alive. What did I say?"

I am distracted by the sight of Megatron with my baby and barely notice Nitro. It is only when he makes sounds to draw my attention to him that I respond, "Hmm, I have the impression my sentence has only been postponed. Megatron speaks to my son first."

"Holy Primus." Nitro giggles deeply and resentfully.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

I lay my head crooked, like: Oh, yeah? "Just say it. I'm not gonna kill you."

But Nitro just holds his faceplate and laughs softly inside himself, turns away like I can't see it.

I'm starting to get angry. I'm getting in the damn good mood to kick his afterburner. But I don't feel like it anymore when I look over to Megatron.

... who soon after lifts his helm and calls me to him.

I stand before him expectantly. He hands Itsy back to me, whom I happily embrace. Now the world is again in order.

"I had a very interesting conversation with your daughter," he says.

I must have misheard. Has Megatron developed a sense of humor lately? No, he looks serious. Puzzled I look at Itsy and try to see any clue, but I see nothing. The little creature's voice is high and squeaky, as is usual for a creature of this size. Can it be?

"She doesn't want to hurt your feelings and therefore doesn't tell you that you are always talking about her with the wrong gender," Megatron continues.

Again I stare at Itsy, the words echoing in my mind: I have a daughter, not a son. Oh Itsy, why did you not say anything?

"Go now. You stay close."

"You ... You're not taking me back to Cybertron? What are you gonna do with me?" If he would have kidnapped me again, I don't know what I would do. Cybertron is a fascinating planet. But I could not bear the thought of never seeing Earth again. They won't let me escape again. However ... I find the thought of never seeing Cybertron again causes me the same pain. Then again, why would he do that now? I am of no further use to him.

"I will not discuss my plans with you. Go now." So there is a plan? I have no idea what that could be.

When I leave with Itsy, I retreat to a quiet corner. In passing, I realize that Nitro Zeus now has a private audience, probably to tell Megatron everything he learned by sniffing around me. I'm sure he'll give Megatron all my data, including the data from my smartphone with the videos. Well, the Decepticon leader is used to seeing me in humiliating situations.

I drop the protoform in front of me on a barrel, so it looks at me. "So you're a girl?" I ask in surprise, trying to get used to the idea. "How do you know that?"

"I feel like you and Headache, not like the others. Would you rather have a boy?" Oh dear! Itsy was afraid that if he - she - corrected me, I would disown her.

"What? No, I love you! I didn't see it. I'm sorry. Cybertronians are virtually genderless, not like humans. I thought appearance was what made Cybertronians male or female."

I embrace my little protoform. "You can talk to me about anything."

And we do, right now.

So Nitro arrives when he ends his audience, still we stand before each other and talk.

"I was sad when you thought I ate the bolts, but I really wasn't."

I nod. Now I know it was Nitro.

"I don't like your boss. I don't want him touching you. I don't like your colleagues either. They talk so much. I don't really like anyone but you. I don't know why. I don't like your apartment. There are so many dead machines standing around. Can't you stay here?"

I shrug my shoulders undecidedly and let Itsy continue.

"Besides, I don't like you leaving me alone. Especially when you go to dangerous places. I also don't like when you take me along and I hear your heart beating so loud and fast because you're afraid. I'm worried because you've been acting so strange lately."

Okay, I was half aware of that.

"I find it embarrassing when you sing."

Ouch.

There's nothing from her for a while. I think she's done now pouring her spark out, but I'll keep quiet in case she thinks of anything else.

She says, "Are you mad at me now?"

"No, you're right. I'm trying to be better."

Nitro comes in from the side. "Well? Did Itsy finally tell you?"

I make a slight insulted face. "You knew she was a girl and said nothing when I called her the wrong gender."

"Are you kidding? Look how cute and petite she is."

I look at her. Mentally, I compare her to my other protoforms. Am I really that stupid? No, they all look quite similar to me. "Uh, I don't see anything. What do these look like to you?" I send him some pictures of my other protoforms, which I generate from my memory using my inner system.

I can almost see Nitro looking at them one by one. "Who are they?"

"Well, my other descendants. They are all ... gone."

Nitro pulls down the mechanics above his optic. "You don't mean dead, do you?"

I use my right to remain silent and await the answer to my question.

"Those three are female. He sends me the classification as reply. Misty, Hissy and Izzy were female. Izzy, the protoform, not to be confused with the little girl from the scrapyard.

Oh, Primus. I would have put my money on Cassie and Lissy, the softest in the group. But the aggressive Hissy, who was constantly fighting for control of the group? Unbelievable. Plus, I'm horrified to find I still can't tell the difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now you have to read the whole story again to find all scenes where Seldra misgendered her baby and others reacted to it. :)
> 
> Y'know one day I thought: Most Decepticons are male. We need more females. Hey, what if Itsy has been a female all the time and Seldra misgendered her, because stupid? And also some of the Cavecons. Yeah, that would be funny. So I made it happen in the most embarrassing moment I could think of: after hundreds of pages and revealed by Megatron, also everybody else knew and no-one told her before. My humor.


	14. In the Decepticon Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra ensconces herself in the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, Seldra is proposing.
> 
> Warning: Minor Self-Harm. Kinda. It's just for demonstration.

I wait for a few hours to see if anything happens and explore the surroundings - there is not much here: scrub, dry grass, scattered trees. Mainly dry ground and sand. I determine my approximate position, the next human town and leave.

"Where are you going?" Megatron radios me when I left the camp a good distance behind.

I groan annoyed, because the question alone tells me what he is getting at. "To the humans. For water, food, social interaction, meaningful work, the whole nine yards."

"You stay here. You may leave when I allow you to, not any earlier."

"Why? I don't have the Allspark anymore. What more do you want from me?"

But instead of answering the question, I get, "I'm not discussing this point with you."

I do not feel able to argue the point with him either. I look longingly at the red rocks on the horizon before I turn back, sighing. "I need clean drinking water. May I at least take a trip to the next village or shall I spend the next few days looking for water here?" The dry soil here tells me that I must either walk very far or dig very deep for it. And then there is my immune system, weakened by the transformation into metal, so I would have to treat the water very thoroughly to avoid being killed by a bacterium that got lost in it.

"I am sending Igor out," Megatron replies after a while. I still see him standing motionless in the same place as he has been for hours. "Send me a list of the things you need."

Igor - that's a misshapen Con wiggling through the camp and kissing Megatron's feet. He's supposed to get me stuff? He has neither a flight nor a vehicle mode. It would surely take him several days to stumble to the next village, and then he should convince the people to give him stuff, with all the charm of the piece of junk he is? Taking things by force is out of the question for him either, and he can't carry much.

All right, if Megatron wants it. He'll see that it's not a good idea.

When I get back to the camp, I'm done compiling my list and revised it to the point where I'm satisfied with it.

But Megatron cuts down on half of things. "No. Only the essentials."

I'm going over the things he has dismissed. "What is not necessary about a lighter?"

"You can make sparks with your own spark." That's right, but it costs me energy and I haven't got much left, as Brains correctly pointed out. If I survive until then, I'm gonna have to start begging Megatron for Energon. Which would stall a lighter for a minimum of time.

"And the paintball ammo? That's my secret weapon against aliens."

"They're in your stuff that Nitro Zeus brought." The Colossus stirs for the first time in hours, pointing his long arm at a pile of stuff nearby. Oh. Good. 

"Um, can I go over my list again?"

Megatron turns away annoyed without answering.

I'll take that as a yes and go through that pile of stuff. Great, that gives me a decent foundation. There's my paintball ammo, my tools in case I need to fix anything, a few shots of painkillers - which don't work for me anymore. Some water in plastic bottles, so I can get along for a while at least.

Finally, I send Megatron a new, much shorter list, which he accepts without corrections and soon after that I enjoy the comfort of a new water filter.

I have to improvise my berth. On the scrapyard there was a wreck somewhere where I could hide, which could be closed so that I would hear an intruder and I feel safe. On Cybertron I had slept in the warm blower of a factory - I had other worries.

I light a fire, pile up some branches, leaves and grasses to form a wind trap and crouch in front of it to rest.

The night is calm, almost windless. Something is lurking around there. A dry twig cracks near me.

I jump up, reach for my alien cannon, but it is gone. Instead, I grab a stick, roll around and stand. The fire has burned down to a smouldering. In the light of the stars I try to see something and listen into the night.

It is a dark, moonless night, the perfect night for eyeless creatures living in the sewers. I hardly dare leave the faint glow of the embers. What looks like bushes could be eggs. Something could be lurking in the undergrowth that will jump at me any moment if I get too close.

"What is it, Conmother?"

With a shriek I jump up at the sudden noise, stumble around, pointing my ridiculous stick to the darkness. Damn, that's just Megatron. Ha ha, "just" Megatron.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark."

My heart is racing and I gasp for breath, not making a sound.

"Mother of the Decepticons, thief of the Allspark, defyer of my orders. You, who have lost countless fights in the arena and who gets never tired of throwing challenges around. Can it be that the only thing that frightens you is the absence of a significant amount of photons? What a shame." I can't stand it when he talks swollen like that while I'm all upset.

I throw wood on the embers and start rekindling the fire. Slowly I calm down. I should notice when something sneaks up on me. It's just my mind playing tricks on me.

"You know what we do on Cybertron with protoforms who are afraid of the dark?"

"No?"

"We give them a weapon against the darkness. And send them back there." That's ridiculous. I've never heard of that. On second thought, I've never seen a protoform afraid of anything.

"I'm not afraid of the dark, and you're exaggerating." Megatron has a way with words. As a sign of his self-appropriated education, which is not part of his programming. Only when he is angry does he fall back into his terse commanding tone. So almost always in my presence. This way of expressing is a sign that he is in a good mood. Maybe it's gloating.

"Then tell me, what is the weakness that must be exorcised?"

"I don't want to talk about it. I'm going to sleep. Good night." Of course I won't sleep, or the nightmares will come back.

After Nitro Zeus showed him the leaked contents of my smartphone, he should figure it out for himself. Maybe the connection isn't obvious. I hope he doesn't. Although, what are the odds that Megatron would know a weapon against acid blood? Not good. I would certainly know it.

Unfortunately, the fire won't help this time. There's something in the darkness, I can feel it. Every slightest tremor, the slightest noise startles me. Only when it starts to get light and I can see the area around me again, I feel safe enough to block out the small disturbances and catch up on my sleep.

The next morning I didn't even wake up properly when Megatron already speaks to me. "Conmother, send me your report."

Indifferently, I compile a report from my sensors about my state of health and send it to him, while I'm still crouching in front of the embers, looking around and wondering if it's worth taking another nap. No, I am not tired enough.

"The data is incomplete," complains Megatron.

"The sensors that measure my blood levels are off-line and they're not coming back."

But that's not enough response for him. "Conmother, what's wrong with you, answer!"

I don't really feel like talking to him about it, but I'm even less inclined to argue with him - I've already done that enough on Cybertron and can now calculate with an accuracy of four decimal places what comes out of it.

"Okay, I'll show you." I grab a sharp knife from my possession and look for an old, but still intact piece of sheet metal. "Look, this piece of metal is perfectly intact, see?" I hold it up to Megatron and he's about to complain again about what I'm aiming at. I prick my finger with the knife and drop a drop of blood on the metal, which hisses and eats a hole in it. Then I hold the piece of metal up again. "You see? This is completely abnormal for human blood. I have no idea what it means."

He's so surprised that he doesn't react for several seconds.

"Uh, do you have a doctor available to take a look at that?" I help his thought processes.

"No", he replies harshly. "I want you to know that Scalpel was the only volunteer I could trust, that he would not immediately try to dismantle you into your pieces or inflict unspeakable pain for your crimes, but you killed him. Maybe I'll change my mind if you keep bugging me. No, you're on your own."

What, there were alternatives to Scalpel? I always thought he was the only one with the necessary expertise, even if it didn't seem like it.

Megatron turns away, a sign that my audience is over.

In Megatron's camp, I look at a group of protoforms crowding in a barrel, screaming for food. There it is, our future, arriving when we are no longer. He does this every time. Megatron would save the Cybertronian species alone if he could, but even when he can't, he does his best.

I transform, so the little ones will let me feed them, but they still look at me suspiciously. They are smart, I shouldn't have transformed in front of them. There's a human in this shell.

I transform back and hold Itsy in my hands so she can look at them. My daughter looks at them curiously, but they are still too small to play with them. By that I mean too young. Megatron's babies are already huge and almost as long as me.

"Itsy, after you've said your part, I have something to tell you, too."

Itsy turns to me attentively, patting me with her little legs on my hands.

"My calculations so far have always shown that there is a way out for you without me. If I calculate that I am one hundred percent certain to die, I will leave you behind. I have no intention of keeping my promise."

Itsy froze, probably surprised by the honesty, the horror of my revelation. Then she starts crying Cybertronic screaming, protesting, heartbreaking.

I expected this, but I said it anyway, and I've got to get through it. It's the truth. She would have found out sooner or later anyway. I'll take the noise and try to stay strong until she calms down. When the first pain is over, we'll both feel better.

"My mind is made up. I cannot allow you, the last of my protoforms, to die with me. I want you to live. I want you to experience many things and to see much of this beautiful universe."

Itsy jumps at my neck and claws me so hard I can only make a squeak. She is still whining.

Megatron - who is still standing at the same spot, I don't know what we are disturbing him by - turns to us annoyed. "Stop making your protoform cry. It's unbearable."

With gentle force I try to detach Itsy from me, so I have to send the response. "I'm sorry. She's been so clingy since I--"

Oh, I shouldn't broadcast this so everyone can hear. When I get Itsy off me, I whisper a guilty sigh. "Since I left her in a dungeon."

Megatron is stiffening. He seems to stop whatever he's doing and turns to me completely, furious. "In a dungeon. You should be ashamed of yourself. I let you run free. There was always someone on call in case of emergency, wasn't there?"

I... I... oh, I'm not used to being chided by Megatron anymore, and I feel bad. "It wasn't that bad. Itsy managed to escape through the bars," I clarify.

Megatron calms down again slightly and turns away again, half in his mind. "You made a mistake when you pulled Itsy out of your spark. By Cybertronic standards, you're still a protoform yourself."

Not again. "I am over a thousand years old." Okay, I spent most of that time in hibernation, but I have a point. Besides, when I created Itsy, I had no alternative. What a filthy planet. Itsy was the only good thing about it.

He looks at me out of the corner of his optic and orders, "transform."

I wonder, and I hesitate for a second before I transform.

Megatron looks at me fleetingly. "You are still a protoform. Did you pull out any more protoforms from your spark? They all stayed so small, didn't they? Stop it or they will remain small and weak."

No idea how you can tell? But I won't do tha anyway, and I remember what Brains said when I transform back. "I don't have the strength for more anyway." But that doesn't matter. I love Itsy, and I'd trade the All spark for her anytime.

"Your energy needs to be recharged, and everything will be fine. Show me that your usefulness outweighs the trouble you cause, and I might give you something."

I doubt that would prolong my life.

Slightly frustrated I try to make some tea, but it doesn't make it any better.

Nitro Zeus curiously approaches and asks what I'm doing.

"Do you know the story of how I poured a cup of tea over Starscream?" I ask. Maybe the story got around, maybe not. "Tea gives me a fighting spirit." Unfortunately, the plants I found taste awful and I hurl the cup away.

"No", he answers and crouches beside me in a relaxed manner. " But are the other stories people tell about you true? Did you disassemble Rage, Megatron's second spaceship, with a screwdriver?"

I laugh softly. The story gets stranger every time I hear it. There are only two people who know the truth, and Rage never says a word. So I take the chance to tell a different, more humiliating story every time. "Oh, no. In truth, he tripped over a bus and hit his spark at a hardware store. That jerk. Ever since then, everybody thinks I beat him." Anything can happen in fights against me, as Nitro has learned. Still, he warps the metal plates around his optical sensor into a doubtful look. Let the Data Kraken find out the truth for himself.

"But tell me," I now ask back. "You meant it when you said I was a protoform? How can you tell?"

"Hmph," he mocks slightly. "Your ignorance surprises me anew every time. In fact, you're a very young protoform. Your case still has that characteristic gloss when you're not damaged. There's a reason we call our babies sparklings. Hey, what's that look for?"

"I'm a grown up human," I say seriously, softly, with difficulty suppressing the tears of anger that are about to come. I've never seen this gloss he speaks of, neither in me nor in the other protoforms. Maybe it's like gender, another feature that remains hidden from me.

"You're a sparkling. I suppose that's why no one on Cybertron explained the concept of interfacing to you."

It hurts very much to be told that. Judging by my state of health, I have long since passed my zenith as a human being, yet with my thousand years - okay, I spent them in hibernation, but still - I count as a baby for Cybertronians. Nitro does not take me seriously. I will never get old enough for him to recognize me as an equal. Man, that is so unfair.

But I'll make the best of it. I still have time to do all kinds of childish crap.

Right now, I'm teaching Itsy and I'm putting a gun on the ground in front of her. "Here. Connect to it and fire a shot." Itsy crawls to the back and transforms her legs to make contact with the electronics. I expect her to have no trouble with it.

Nearby, Nitro Zeus looks around searching. "Has anyone seen my rocket launcher?"

Itsy has successfully made contact. A rocket leaves the muzzle and strikes with an action-movie-like explosion into the distant mountains.

"Well done!" I cuddle Itsy. "Next, we practice aiming."

Nitro Zeus watches the explosion, then his gaze falls on us. He comes over and gives me a nasty look, then he picks up his cannon off the ground and plugs it into himself. "Don't do that again."

I smile, "You better watch your stuff. You never know if somebody hasn't accidentally dropped a figure of you somewhere to distract you and secretly steals your guns."

"What did I tell you I'd do if you hold out your tail?" he asks rebuking. Oh, he's so cute when he gets upset.

"Oh, but I didn't. Here, Itsy took a picture to prove it." I get my smartphone out of my pocket, call up a photo and show him. You can see Nitro bending over while I'm hanging over him, my tail wrapped around the branch of a tree, screwdriver in the hand.

He indignantly lifts the servos into his hips, then bends forward to reach for me.

Itsy squeaks and jumps for cover. I transform in the heat of the moment, but I stop and allow his huge servo to surround my slender body.

He lifts me in front of his face. "I should spank you for that."

Although he holds me gently, I feel the power in his servo that could simply crush me. It feels good to be at his mercy and know at the same time that he would never hurt me.

"Go ahead," I provoke. That he doesn't take me seriously has its advantages.

He only threatens me with a raised forefinger. "Don't do that again. Next time, just ask nicely." He's about to drop me off as I'm giving Itsy some signals: Hide the spear gun.

But Nitro's gaze falls on the object that is half-hidden behind a barrel, peeking out. He angrily distorts the metal parts around his optical sensor. Nitro, still holding me, starts to move.

"Hey, where we going?"

"I'm going to spank you." He stops at a tree - wait, that's the same one where I stole his guns. He grabs the end of my tail and ties it to the big branch with a knot.

Head over heels, he leaves me hanging there. "What are you doing? I'll be out of here in no time." I try to pull myself up, but all I can manage is a little dangling. I try to swing to the trunk to climb up, but I'm too far away. Hm, how awkward.

"Give me your screwdriver." The upside-down Nitro stretches his servo out to me in a demanding manner.

I obediently remove the screwdriver from my hammer space and hand it to him, only to say, "Keep it. I can make as many new ones as I want."

But he just looks at it with interest, holds it up to the optics and turns it all the way around. "You could have taken me apart in the lab and examined my parts with that."

"But I didn't." I didn't want humans to have our technology, nor did I want to be asked where I got it. "Do you really think I would work for the humans? Put me down now."

But he stops and looks down at me. "You are so beautifully helpless right now." The screwdriver falls to the floor. "Punishment is necessary. Put yourself down." He moves away and transforms nearby into his SUV mode for rest, so he can watch my attempts to free myself.

"So this is the thanks I get for testing your skills," I call over to him. "Just be glad I'm including you in the training. How else will you know if you'll fall for cheap tricks?"

No reaction. I try again with all my strength to bend myself upwards to climb up the branch by my own tail, but I don't make it. I try again to swing to the trunk, but give up quickly. Itsy climbs the branch auxiliary, but she is too small and weak to untie the knot Nitro used to tie me down. My own weight presses the tip against the wood, so I cannot loosen it.

There is only one way out. I get ready for the impact, then I make contact with the links of my tail. It's almost like transforming, but something is being taken apart, not put together, difficult to describe.

Zack, I land on the ground while the lower half of my tail is still hanging from the tree. Then I climb up to get the rest. Then, with a mocking slap of my tail in Nitro's direction, I jump into the undergrowth.

I'm crouching in the shade and, as usual, checking the internet cameras for alien activity when I notice a cloud of dust on the horizon. Soon I recognize a row of black SUVs coming there and I start humming in a kind of premonition "The Rains of Castamere" from Game of Thrones. "But now the rains weep o'er his hall and not a soul to hear."

Megatron turns to me. I've been kidnapped after the first season I showed him in the simulation, but the song doesn't show up until the second. If Megatron recognizes the song, it can only mean one thing.

"Do you follow the show?" I ask him. "Then I will not spoil you."

Megatron twists his optical sensors and doesn't answer. I laugh and whisper half-laughing, "They are all gonna die." That's when he spots the new arrivals.

The Decepticons extend their weapons, but the SUVs keep a respectful distance and the men getting out are unarmed.

Well, look at that. I know him. The man in the long black coat with the short grey hair, who approaches Megatron with his hands up and asks to speak, has been working with Lockdown.

"We need Seldra," he makes his request.

"Seldra?" wonders Megatron. "I don't know anyone of that name."

I wouldn't have bothered to change my name if I knew Megatron didn't know what my name was anyway.

The agent looks over at me in confusion and makes a gesture in my direction. "I am a person of that name," I interject, mocking his language. It just slipped out.

He gives me a wicked sideways glance. "No," Megatron replies harshly without listening to what they want from me. "After you blame my people for your problems, you better give me a reason not to shoot you right now."

I have a hunch that's about to be confirmed. Yes, it's about a certain Cybertronian, as the agent explains. "We have reason to believe that Seldra is connected to the disappearance of one of our agents known as the bounty hunter Lockdown. He's one of your people, isn't he? Apparently, Seldra is the only one who's managed to leave the place alive where he is trapped."

"What?" asks Megatron, enraged. "That's impossible. Conmother, come here and report."

My eyes wander unsteadily. Slowly, I begin to move. The Cons and the agents are watching me.

He takes a few steps aside to speak to me privately. There he teases the information out of me.

"It was an accident," I explain. "He jumped into the sewers and happened to step into a nest of those alien creatures that was right there."

"I know about your accidents." Megatron rolls his optical sensors. "Lockdown owes me a favor. You get him out of there."

"But, but, but ... He can't be serious! All my work for nothing. "Do you have any idea what they're doing to me over there? You're sending me to a painful death. No offense, but then you'd better kill me now."

"Pull yourself together. As long as you follow my instructions, you won't get hurt. It's time you learn to follow orders."

"I'd like to see you when aliens lock you up, rape you all the time and use you as a birthing machine ..." Then it occurs to me that humans have imprisoned him, examined him and built Earth's machines in his image. In a way, that's what happened to Megatron. He knows exactly what it's like. I have no reason to complain that he doesn't understand.

He bends over, down to me, until I look into the headlights of his red optics. "Yeah?" he asks sarcastically. "Just speak up." He told me about it. As if he could read my mind, he already knew what I wanted to say.

What am I thinking, ridiculous. I don't think that his experiences are comparable to mine. After all, people hadn't really raped him, they'd sawed him open ... Wait a minute, I was sawed up, too. It WAS just as bad.

"Would you go back and take it all over again?" I ask incredulously. "For Lockdown? He's not that important."

"I would rip the spark out of my own chest if it would save my people." Ironically, that's exactly what he had always wanted mew to do when I still carried the Allspark. "If I were you, I would stop whining and do whatever it takes."

My attention-seeking hand drops.

"Those men there will help you. And I'm giving you Starscream. At least he can keep you under control."

Oh, Primus. Humans and Starscream. It can only fail. I clench my fists, lower my eyes. I'm trying to decide which of my hundred arguments to make. Lockdown tried to kill me, why can't he be replaced with other good people? Starscream, Primus damn it, don't mention Starscream.

That gives me an idea. Not Starscream, but maybe somebody else can help me, somebody worthy. You could always ask. I'm pushing, typing index fingers together, drawing circles with my foot on the ground.

"Um, would you ... would you partner me up with Nitro?

Oh, he doesn't like that. I've unleashed a storm of indignation and Megatron is going, "Have you lost your mind? Why would I do that? Nitro is a great, powerful warrior and a great hunter and intelligence officer, one of my best people. He needs a partner his equal, one who can match his strength and intelligence."

My embarrassment gives way the longer he talks. I wait patiently, smiling, for the storm to pass.

"You can do nothing. You're childish, making nothing but trouble, always getting yourself into trouble. You'd be a millstone around his neck. I can't have someone as precious as Nitro Zeus playing babysitter for you. Whatever gave you the absurd notion to raise such a request to me."

When I'm sure he's made his point I reply, "I gave him an acid-proof paint job. Therefore, he is the only one qualified to go on the mission with me."

Megatron is stunned for a moment. Then he rolls his optical sensors and screams, "Nitro Zeus!" And he says to me, "This is just for the duration of the mission. The last word has not yet been spoken." Yeah. I win.

The mighty Con arrives, coming right at us. "Here I am, boss."

"You're accompanying Conmother on Lockdown's rescue mission. Prepare for immediate departure. If she fools around, call Starscream."

I'm like, "No, don't do that. I'll be good."

Nitro responds with a wink, "Don't worry. I'll punish her myself." Whereupon my face again becomes so glowing I have to cover it with my hands.

Then I begin my calculations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how marriage works among Decepticons. Just cut all the dating crap and get to the point. Take them by force.
> 
> (I'm just kidding. Nitro will have something to say about that the next time he gets the chance.)


	15. The Rescue Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra leads Cemetary Wind into the Hive to rescue Lockdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Megatron tells Nitro to just play along, he will get him out of this, lol.
> 
> Warning: A lot of Alien stuff: Facehugger and Chestburster doing their thing, Blood, Gore. They go into an Alien hive, what could possibly go wrong??

I'm used to going off on my own. Before and during the battles I simulate all possibilities on my inner system, or rather as many as time allows and as much as makes sense to me. Then I put into action what the simulations have shown to be most promising.

But this time Megatron demands that I discuss my plans with him in detail. I understand that it is his job as leader and that he has a lot of experience in forging and executing plans. But I have yet to get used to this openness.

I tell him about it and send him the map of the sewerage system I have created and the map of the city on which I have marked the exits. "This is where I lured Lockdown into the Hive and this is where I last saw him. I will descend there with a winch held by Nitro. I attach the end to Lockdown and we pull him out."

I like my plan. It's simple and effective. Though things can go wrong here and there if an alien suddenly comes around the corner, but I take care of that if it happens.

"No," Megatron decides. "You stay out. Let the humans do the work."

Megatron forces me to dismiss my plans and completely recalculate. Something inside me is reluctant to listen to him. But I start the simulations in fast forward with the new initial parameters, change something, recalculate. The chances are much better with his advice. I begin to feel something like admiration for him and his abilities. Which of course I will never admit.

Then I have to make backup plans. He asks me what I do if this and that happens. What if one of the men dies. If a hunter-alien shows up. If Lockdown has changed location in the meantime. Megatron urges me to consider all uncertainties and imposes clear rules.

"Do you understand?" he asks.

"Yes."

"You let the others do the work for you. You don't put yourself in danger. You intervene only when absolutely necessary."

"Yes, I do."

"Can I count on that?

Oh, hell, he made me come up with the best plan in the universe. Of course he can, why would I want to do anything differently?

Since I'm tired of saying yes to him again and again and therefore stay silent, he adds threateningly, "I forbid you to die."

"You cannot control everything." Sometimes he acts up unnecessarily. I've done the math, and it's never 100 percent certain.

"There are many more things under my control than you know." Megatron taps me on the upper part of my body, where my spark is. "I have certain expectations of you. Do not disappoint me again."

This gesture moves something in me. Brings back memories of Optimus looking at my spark and agreeing it wasn't the Allspark. The doctor who said Megatron sent everyone out after they sawed me open and I died. Megatron, the first one I saw when I awoke as a hybrid. The Allspark is gone, and yet my spark is here. Megatron said he would rip the spark from his chest to save his people. I'm not just a protoform - he treats me as if I need to be raised.

"That's not the only thing you put in me, is it?"

Megatron pauses. Silently, I plead to Primus: let him laugh, let him call me stupid. Let him ignore this comment that means nothing. I was just guessing. It suddenly makes sense to me, but the human brain sees patterns even where there aren't any. Please, prove me wrong. But it sounds like the famous silence of approval and with every second that passes, my hope crumbles.

"This means more to your sentimental human heart than to me. I have millions of descendants," he finally says. "For us it is the deeds that count, not the origin. If you do not serve our cause, you will be destroyed, like everyone else in your place."

Oh, Primus, how could you let this happen? Here I stand, thinking I had a choice as to whose side I wanted to stand on. I thought I could withdraw from the war and live among humans again. But my own spark is tying me to Megatron.

He straightens up, his arms majestically crossed in front of his chest, "Remember that I have never asked you to do anything I would not do. Go now. Do not fail me."

I humbly retreat.

Right now I'm sitting at the side, watching the webcams and the news again. The city hasn't changed much - security has been tightened and people are advised to stay indoors and if necessary, go somewhere in groups of at least two, better three, or in larger groups. So lately fewer people have disappeared or been found dead.

I'm waiting for Nitro to get his input from Megatron so we can leave. I'm not flying back on my own, too exhausting.

Suddenly - I didn't hear him coming despite his size - Nitro Zeus stands behind me. "Have you finally ..." I turn around and I see he holds me a cup. With a friendly expression, if you can say that about his face. The smell gets in my nostrils and the machine inside me leaps for joy. "Is that ... nuts and bolts tea with destructium flavor?" I take the cup. Let the hot, fragrant fumes rise to my nose. In my mind's eye the scent creates images of an intact Cybertron, sunlit, shiny polished metal, a clear sky, protoforms with red and blue optics playing peacefully together. This scent is heavenly.

"Thank you. I love it." I cry tears of joy and I'm sorry for everything I did to that nice guy. At least for now. Give me five minutes.

I take a sip. To my human taste buds, it tastes like hot water, but my machine senses let my brain participate in that treat.

"You're welcome, but tell me." Nitro sits next to me. "You might have asked me before if I was interested in a partnership with you. As a courtesy if the concept means anything to you."

I give the cup to Itsy to share with her. Given her size, she only drinks a few drops anyway.

"You know how the other Decepticons treated me back on Cybertron? I was new to the planet and didn't know anything. All the time I made some mistake and the Cons made fun of me, spanked me or rattled me out to Megatron. You are the only one who speaks friendly to me. Megatron said he wanted to send Starscream out on the mission with me. Starscream was one of the worst. In the Hive we would just try to kill each other again. No, there is no alternative but for you to come with me if I shall come back alive." I sip my tea in meditation and am proud to sound so calm and mature, so logical and thoughtful, while half ashamedly I'm glad Nitro is accompanying me. It was embarrassing enough having to ask Megatron. Nitro is simply the best choice. I can't let him refuse. Especially not now.

Nitro questions my judgment. "Megatron speaks to you by name. He grants this honor only to Decepticons who have earned his respect."

I put the cup down. "You know how Megatron once said I'm free to hate him for kidnapping me? And I said I'd do the same thing in his place? And he laughed and said if I did, he'd start calling me by my name?"

"You're not seriously telling me you kidnapped Megatron against his will and held him?"

I laugh. "No, of course not. Not really." Oh, my dear Nitro, if you only knew what I can do. I worked hard for my respect.

He just looks at me confused. Unlike me, Megatron keeps his promises.

Finally, I finish my drink and put the cup aside before turning to Itsy. "You are a good girl while I am gone."

Then I turn to Nitro, holding one arm behind me so Itsy can climb in secretly. "Okay, I'm ready to go."

First, there's a little misunderstanding to clear up. Nitro Zeus lands transforming with a jump in front of their headquarters, just as the men arrive and the agent with the short grey hair looks at me with a mixture of confusion and disgust.

"So", I ask, "where are the men I am to brief?" I just think to myself: you are so lost that you have to rely on me.

The silence continues and the men exchange looks. "What?", I ask with feigned amazement. "Did you think I'm gonna go in there by myself, flatten everything like Rambo and then I'm gonna load Lockdown on my shoulders? Let me guess, you sent five guys in there to rescue Lockdown and they all died?"

"Seven," the agent replies dryly.

"Look. Give me five men with strong minds and I'll teach them everything they need to know to move around the Hive."

He looks at me with deep mistrust as he contemplates my plan. I can understand that. But I offer them information, there's nothing wrong with that, they can still renegotiate if they don't like the information.

"Fine", he decides and sets about making the preparations.

I await the men in a small room with various chairs and a blackboard that looks like a school. As the five of them enter one after the other, they pass a television set on a trolley with Itsy sitting on it, to which they react differently. This is a simple test of their attitudes. One gives her a respectful turn, one gives her a look of disgust. Secretly, I start giving them names: From now on they're called Soldier A through E - not worth remembering their birth names.

The last one to enter looks very young, twenty at most. Who is sending this child into the field? He stops in front of the television and bends over with interest to get a better look at Itsy. "Cute," he says and tries to nudge her, but she skillfully avoids his finger and hisses. If he finds the alien critters in the Hive cute, too, he will be the first to die.

"Sit," I command and step to the blackboard to roughly outline my plan. First I write a one and paint a stick figure spider from the side, which is supposed to represent an alien. Behind my back I hear whispers and a tone of voice that expresses what nonsense they think my lessons are. They will be surprised. "As a first step, you will enter the Hive unarmed and try to avoid the aliens as much as possible. If you do encounter one, you will be submissive and do whatever they want. Do not engage, under any circumstances, and do not draw your weapons."

They shake their heads discreetly over what nonsense I'm saying, as I realize with a quick glance into the room. It goes against everything they would do.

I write a two and draw a circle, behind it another spider from above with a long tail. "You go to their eggs. Parasites hatch out of them, which then sit on your faces, like this. Itsy, show them." Itsy hurls itself from the TV right into my face and clings to me. Gently I pull her off me. "Thank you. The parasites then implant an egg inside you" - I make a theatrical movement with a folded hand towards my mouth to symbolise the fleshy tube - "that takes about eight to twelve hours, during which you are unconscious. If you have the egg inside you, you can move freely in the Hive and the adults will largely ignore you. You will then complete the mission as quickly as possible. It will take approximately two days for the parasites to break out of you and kill you, so we need to remove them before then."

I put Itsy back on the TV and casually notice someone grabbing his head. They'll not gonna do anything I say, not yet. Well, that's about to change.

"You, come forward." I point to the young man, Soldier E, and I pull a cable from the TV, which I connect to my chest under my top. As a test, I transfer the image of the beach from my home simulation to the screen. The man recedes as I extend my tail. "It is my responsibility to make the mission a success, so I will let you practice everything in a safe environment until I'm sure you won't fuck it up. Don't worry, it's not fatal."

I stick my tail to the neck of Soldier E and take him to the Hive in a simulation. Along that I catch him before he falls to the ground and lay him down gently. With my eyes half closed and with full concentration, I cut off the image that I project into the soldier's optic nerve and simultaneously transfer it to the TV so that the other men can see what he sees.

His eyes scurry nervously through the darkness so that one gets dizzy watching and he waves his flashlight through the sewers, across the path in front of him and along the corridor across the water. He alone hears their screams in the darkness, because I never bothered with the sound transmission.

"Stay calm", I tell him in the simulation and the men in the room at the same time. "Remember what I said. Walk forward and when you come across one, watch for the signals he gives you."

The mood changed abruptly. The men look at the screen in surprise with their mouths open and their comrade, whom I have apparently laid asleep on the floor, my mechanical tail connected to his neck. Suddenly they look as if they believe everything I say.

They watch on the screen as their comrade tries to get his breathing under control by raising and lowering his light cone. But then he starts to curiously examine the simulation: looks at his hands, moves his fingers, touches the wall. He lights down on himself and scans his pockets. Finally he moves forward with timid steps. The cone of light moves around and briefly illuminates an alien in front of a tunnel, just before it moves its mouth in a mute hiss and disappears into the tunnel. The men in the room hold their breath.

Soldier E holds the flashlight pointed at the spot and starts to slowly walk backwards. The light is shaking. He turns around and starts to run.

"Stay calm, I said. They feel your fear."

Soldier E stops, puts his back against the wall. Again and again he directs the trembling beam of light back and forth between the corridor in front of and behind him, but at least he keeps walking.

"Left into the tunnel," I command.

The cone of light swings around and feels its way along the round, brick walls. After several meters it falls into the void. The light explores the ground, which is stained with greasy substances - dark brown, that could be blood, black lumps, but also light, thread-like pieces. Then the light falls on something that moves mechanically on the spot in the darkness - the back of an alien whose arms move back and forth in some activity that requires its full attention. It ignores Soldier E completely.

He remains frozen for a few seconds until he has the courage to step sideways in a semicircle around the creature to see what it is doing.

An elongated, light-coloured figure becomes visible, the outline of a human, which the alien is tampering with.

A few more steps. The alien fills the picture in profile. It alternately raises its hands to his mouth, pulls out a white, thread-like substance and, with the other, turns the girl, which it weaves into a cocoon like a spider.

It turns the girl, who still has the back of her head turned towards Soldier E, and her face comes out. She is alive! She is conscious and sobs, turning her face away from the alien's breath, disgusted. She opens her eyes and discovers the soldier. "Please, help me!" her silent lip movements cry in despair.

The soldier passes the flashlight to his left, pulls a pistol with his right.

The alien interrupts its work, lets the girl plop carelessly to the ground and hisses in the direction of the soldier.

The soldier takes aim. The alien jumps towards him. The soldier fires. Green blood spurts, hits the gun, the flashlight, half the picture - etches itself into everything, just before the alien spears the soldier with its tail.

The picture turns black.

Soldier E wakes up screaming from the simulation and I disconnect.

The man comes hastily down on all fours, crawls around, looking anxiously around, then pushes himself against the wall and starts to cry.

It is quiet in the room. I wait patiently until he has calmed down a bit. None of the others dares to say anything, too much shock is still written on their faces.

When he stands up and wipes his face with his sleeve, he is ready for my lecture. "I asked for strong men, not sissies. I spent three days in the Hive without anyone holding my hand." I point to the door. "Get out. No need to come back."

Surprisingly, he's gotten himself back in pretty good shape. "Please, I was the first. I didn't know what to expect. Please give me a chance, I'll do better."

"No." I keep my arm pointed at the door.

"Please, you can send me back, I'll get used to it."

"I said no."

Now the other men are interfering, too. Oh, Primus, this is how Megatron must feel whenever I argue with him instead of just following his orders. They talk to me, all mixed up. Nonsense, I know my plan, all my plans. If I were to lay them out for them, we'd be busy here for a week.

"Quiet!" I yell. This noise is unbearable. "I don't care about any of this. I'm in charge here and you do as I say. If no one is able to follow my instructions, then we stop the whole thing immediately. I won't tolerate discussions. You", I turn again to Soldier E. "Get out of here."

Disappointed, he leaves the room.

I take a few seconds to breathe calmly. It was fun to send the boy into the simulation, I haven't done that for a long time.

Next I send Soldier A into the simulation and let other things happen, but still the first demonstration was already very instructive and the others are doing well. The whole simulation makes me tired, but by the end of the day I'm sure they're ready.

Tomorrow we will start. The men ... thank me? They are impressed by my simulations and feel very well prepared. Embarrassed, I let them shake my hand on the way out, but I try not to let them notice. "Thank me afterwards," I just say. "And in the morning, before you go out, eat plenty of food to keep your strength up." With those words, they're dismissed.

As planned, I let Nitro take the humans down into the sewers a little further away from the center, where there's less chance of encountering alien creatures, then I fly with Nitro Zeus to the entry point, which Lockdown has taken, where we wait. Hm, the entrance is covered by solid stuff, which we quietly remove first. Maybe Nitro could just shoot it away, but I decide to attach the winch to it and pull it away - no problem with my small, human hands. It has a hard but flexible structure, like plastic or a piece of a huge insect armor.

By radio I keep in contact with the men and guide them to the next nest where they can pick up their parasites. Each of them also wears a small camera on his helmet so that I can keep a better overview of what's going on there.

Soon they come across a room full of eggs without incident and I realize that my map still largely corresponds to reality.

"Have fun with your blow job", I can't help but say and earn some complaints. The men are not in the mood for jokes.

"You're impossible," Nitro falls into the general tone. "At least you had the good sense to leave your daughter in the camp."

Wordlessly, I pull Itsy out of the hammer space in my arm and put her on the dashboard.

Nitro sighs. "Don't tell me Megatron let you do this."

"I made a deal with Itsy. Megatron does not need to know everything."

The camera footage is half obscured by the parasites, so I can keep a close eye on them. Now we wait.

We have plenty of time to exchange a few words. "Is it because you have no respect for me that you never call me by my name?" I ask in reference to what he told me yesterday. That Megatron calls me by my name out of respect.

"And you're not on my death list either. Besides, I wouldn't know which name to pick. New ones are popping out all the time."

"Tsk" I do. That's someone who wants to be a data kraken. I'm finger-pointing. "On Earth, I was known as ... Maria Gardner." I hope my hesitating doesn't give him any ideas. "When the Decepticons took me to Cybertron, they called me Human, then Conmother. I transcribed the name literally to Se'eldra Sadr'khor" - Nitro would probably shake his head now if he could, since nobody but me sees a connection - "and used it as a new identity here as well. Lockdown I could not say my name, so I changed it to Botmuother. Five names, not counting the little gimmicks at the motels." I hold up the open hand with five fingers stretched out. "Oh, and Starscream calls me Sparkling. Six names. Does that match your research?"

"Which one do you listen to?"

I laugh. "Depends on who wants what from me."

The soldiers wake up one by one - A, B, D - no! He ruined the nice sequence - and finally C. They know this well enough from my simulations and are quickly ready to continue the mission. I give them the direction.

They are relieved to find out that it is exactly as I said: The aliens come by occasionally to sniff them out, then they share their findings with the others by screeching, leaving the soldiers alone. The men are relaxed about this.

For several hours they walk through the sewers. The closer they get to the centre, the more alien creatures are roaming around. Sometimes I hear screams from a distance, in quadruple version through all microphones.

"How much farther is it?" asks Soldier A. "Sometimes I get the impression we're walking in a curve."

"Don't worry, the parasite hatches after two days. We have plenty of time." I check my map. "My map doesn't show all the routes, so sometimes I have to decide whether to let you take a detour or send you down an unknown route."

That calms them down and they continue on their way.

"Right into the tunnel," I tell them. Soldier A's camera image pans around the corner. Oops, that's a level two brood tunnel. There are unconscious people hanging on the wall, spun into cocoons so their heads stick out. An alien is about to feed them one by one, punching meat from a dead man on the floor with its second mouth and feeding mouth-to-mouth to the people on the wall.

It interrupts its work, screeches and comes over to sniff at the soldiers.

"Well, gentlemen. I wish you bon appétit."

"Oh, I was hoping we would get around it", sighs Soldier C. The alien hurries off to get a piece of meat for the first soldier. I explained to them that if that happens, they must bear it so that the aliens will let them go peacefully.

Even if I only watch over the cameras, it's a scary sight to see the alien coming so close to the green camera image with a misshapen piece of meat in its mouth that its long head covers most of the image. In the pictures of the three others I observe how the alien almost tenderly puts its mouth over the soldier's and pushes the meat into his mouth. I am really glad to be sitting up here safely and not to walk through the Hive with the soldiers.

The soldier swallows in disgust and wipes his mouth. Then it's the others' turn. When the alien turns back towards the people on the wall, I let the men go on.

Silently they continue their way. Hours pass.

Suddenly one of the men - Soldier B - stops, looks down at himself, grabs his chest. "I feel strange. I think the parasite wants out."

"Take it easy", I let him know. "As long as you don't..."

The others stop too, turn to him, ask how he is feeling.

"No, damn it!" he interrupts me. "It's moving."

In Soldier B's camera, I see his chest bulging and he's putting his hand on the lump as if to keep the parasite inside. And he moans in pain.

With a scream the alien bursts out and a drop of blood spurts against the camera image of Soldier B. The alien looks around. Soldier D pulls out a gun and points it at the alien - shoots. But at the same time Soldier B falls to the ground and the alien disappears unharmed into the darkness outside the cones of light.

An adult alien, attracted by the shot, jumps against Soldier D's camera image, knocks him to the ground. He screams in great pain, blood splashes on his camera as well, the gun flies away and disappears into the darkness.

Soldier A and C retreat to a safe distance. C is too surprised to say anything. A replies: "Seldra, damn it, what went wrong? Get us out of here, now. We're aborting the mission."

Nitro Zeus asks confused, "Um, is it going according to plan? It doesn't look like it."

"Hold on," I say, and turn off the radio transmission, so the men can't hear what I'm saying to Nitro. Plus, with Soldier D's screams, I can barely understand my own word. I calmly declare, "I have a deal with Megatron that says I'm gonna get Lockdown out, not on the men. These people never reacted when I reported alien activity, but when I defended myself, they locked me in the research center. It's their fault that I encountered Lockdown in the first place and lured him into the Hive. Yes, it's all going according to my plan."

"I like the way you think."

I'm switching on the radio transmission. "Stay calm and stick to what we practiced. Follow the corridor and meet me and Nitro at the rendezvous point."

Oh, I now know how Megatron felt when I stole the Allspark, a mixture of impotent rage: "How dare that human do this" and disbelief at the stupidity: "Can't that worm see what it's doing with it?" I also understand this feeling of satisfaction every time a Decepticon, especially Starscream, kicked out against me. It may not outweigh the crimes, it may not undo the mistakes, but it's so deserved, so satisfying, a little payback.

Nitro asks, "Megatron didn't tell me about this. Did he sign off on it? Not that I mind."

"It's part of the fallback plans."

I grab one end of Nitro's winch and get ready to climb down myself to complete the mission.

"Open the hatch."

"Mama", Itsy holds me back and looks at me from big optics. "Take me with you."

"You don't wanna take her down with you, do you?" Nitro asks.

I check my calculations. There's five percent doubt I'll make it out alive, there's no certainty. That's good enough for me, but Itsy ...

When I hesitate, Itsy lifts a leg so that I renew my promise. "No, Mom. Please, not today."

I reach out my left arm to Itsy and I let her get on. "Open the hatch." Nitro hesitates, but obeys. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Ready for action, I jump from Nitro straight into the sewer entrance, transform, and slide down the last few feet on the steel cable before transforming again and landing below as a human.

Then I move on to the next nest. When the parasite will fall off my face, the other two soldiers will be long dead.

When the parasite lets go off me, I set off, grab the hook of the steel rope and pull it with me.

In the middle of a larger room there is a jolt. I pull the rope, but it doesn't go any further. "Nitro, is that all?"

"That's the biggest winch I could find."

Okay, that was to be expected. Never mind. Next plan. Instead of the rope going to Lockdown, Lockdown goes to the rope.

Lockdown is near the place where I last saw him. Still without legs, he has positioned himself at the top of the hole that the acid etched into the ground. There he is leaning upright against the wall, the control center far away from the ground in safety. The burns on his face have partially healed.

"You would have done better to kill me," comments Lockdown as he sees me. "Your motives are incomprehensible to me."

"Do you want to talk some more or do you want out? You requested help, so now you have to endure me."

With eyes narrowed with suspicion, he watches as I spread my hands while I think: Hm, four men would have been enough to move Lockdown, but I alone am too weak as a human being. Nevertheless I step to him and pull - he doesn't move a bit. Then I transform, wrap my tail around him and pull - also too weak. Finally I extend my jet engines and accelerate with all my strength, but it is not enough.

Hm, this is not covered by my calculations, because I do not know the power of my engines, nor Lockdown's weight.

I transform and thoughtfully place my index fingers against the nose. A plan, I have to improvise a new plan. How do I get Lockdown to the rope? Crawl? No, with his servo out of commission last time he grabbed the rope, he can't crawl. Otherwise he would have done it by now.

"Your incompetence is only exceeded by your stupidity."

"Shut up, or I'll leave you here in a puddle of my tears of despair about my inadequacy." How can he still use his language now? In the darkness, the aliens screech. I'll need an idea soon. "I must drown myself for a moment," I announce, but stand still as I dive into a simulation.

"What a waste of my time."

It's what helps me think clearly in difficult situations. In my house simulation, I throw myself into the sea and conjure up a storm against which I fight with all my might until the waves bury me under them. All other problems then seem null and void to me. It's not about winning, just about surviving.

In the simulation half an hour has passed, in reality only a few minutes. Now I know what I need to do.

"Do you still have that screwdriver?" Yes, he does. He's not gonna like that. I'm starting to dismantle parts of him. "You're too heavy," I explain the power diet.

Lockdown twists the optics annoyed. But my plan succeeds.

With aliens prowling around, I stay in my human mode and extend only tail and jet engines. Lockdown has lost another half of his mass, he can take care of that when he gets back to his ship.

Under the eyes of the aliens I now successfully pull Lockdown to the end of the rope. An alien comes to sniff at me and I lean back against the wall. He screeches and disappears, but somehow the screeching sounds different then for the men. Do they remember me?

I get Itsy out of the hammer space. "Here, give me a hand." I maintain Lockdown while Itsy moves the hook around him so I can attach it to its own rope. Then I put Itsy on the rope just above the hook and grab it myself with both hands. "Here, make sure that Lockdown gets up there in one piece." Itsy grips the rope tightly as if she could hold it together with her bare strength, ready to do whatever is necessary to successfully complete the task I have given her.

I send, "Nitro, pull us up." We're on the move. The aliens are watching us screeching. First we move through the horizontal tunnel. The screeching gets louder as we reach the vertical below the entrance.

Then an alien in front of me jumps to Lockdown, grabs me and I have to drop to avoid its teeth.

Shit, it jumps after me. Hisses. Starts driving me back into the tunnel.

"Seldra, where are you?" Sends Nitro worried. Oh, that's the first time he ever called me by name.

"Don't worry, the possibility is covered in by plans too," I reply. "Finish the mission. I'll take another exit."

Calmly, I turn around to follow the alien's instructions. It all runs according to another backup plan.

But then something silver scurries past my feet and climbs up on me. This ... is not meant to be.

"Not today, Mom," says Itsy. She saw through my trick. I quickly put her in the hammer space in my arm and move on.

The aliens have learned. They don't let me walk around this time. This time I am glued to the wall to the other humans.


	16. Seldra leaves the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra completes her transformation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: More Xenomorph stuff: Blood, Gore, you know the drill. Spoiler for Game of Thrones.

Nitro asks me what my plan is. "Are you coming out?"

I'm thinking. Looking around me. I might be able to cut the cocoon open with my tail, but I hear the footsteps of aliens in the darkness ahead, and sometimes I see movement. Maybe there are two or three in this room.

"I am infected. I wait for the alien parasite to break out, then they take me to a room I can climb out of."

"Can't you leave any sooner?"

"No."

Several seconds of radio silence. I hear the aliens' groping in the room, others echoing in the corridors. Somewhere human cries of pain.

"Megatron forbids you to die."

"Tell him I miss him too, but make sure he gets the sarcasm," I laugh in gallows humor. My mood is about to change, so I enjoy the moment while I can.

After two days of waiting on the wall, something moves in my upper body. It is time. It begins with a squeeze, a slight burning in my chest. I have trouble breathing and I reduce my pain sensation and my oxygen consumption. As it presses itself against my chest from the inside, the metal gives way and it breaks out through the slit in my chest. It falls to the ground and gropes through the darkness where it is greeted by the adults with screams. I feel warm blood running down my stomach and I feel dizzy. I let the veins contract to keep the blood loss to a minimum. I want to wait with my eyes closed for them to take me off the wall and dispose of me. But it burns in my robot half - my own blood burns my metal.

With my tail I hastily cut the cocoon and let myself fall to my knees so that the blood can run out of me without resistance and without damaging my machine parts even more. I have to wait until the wound has dried before I can move again. If I am lucky, the aliens will take me away afterwards, they are not in a hurry. If it's sooner, well, I can fix it as soon as I get out of here. 

But they won't.

One of them comes sniffing around, and I play as dead as I can. Especially long it lingers at the blood-stained slit of my torso.

Then it disappears into the darkness.

It comes back shortly afterwards, feeds me a piece of bloody human flesh, which it shoves into my mouth and waits until I swallow.

Minutes later I hear it brings an egg and lays it down in front of me.

Oh, shit. They have learned.

"Uh, Nitro, Itsy, it doesn't work. They brought another egg."

I can just send this one off before the parasite jumps in my face and I lose consciousness.

Something is not right.

I wake up in a cocoon on the wall just as the parasite falls off my face. That's strange. I feel like I've been dreaming the past few days. I have a rough idea of how the aliens glued me back to the wall, but the memory is pale and blurred like a dream you just forgot.

"Itsy, are you there, are you all right?" I send in a short distance.

"Yes. I was afraid you wouldn't wake up."

I contact my inner system for the time. It takes a few milliseconds before it responds. Several hours have passed since I was last conscious.

"Did I miss anything?"

"Nitro Zeus has been trying to reach you all along. I told him you'd contact him when you woke up."

Is that a good thing? Well, they seem concerned on one hand. On the other hand, I don't see how anything is going to help me.

I'm sending out a higher-intensity transmission to cover the distance: "Nitro, I'm awake."

"Thank Primus. Megatron says he will wipe out your species if you do not respond."

Which of my two species ... What am I supposed to do with this information? Well, I responded now, so I guess it's all good. Is there anything I can tell him that would help me? I can't think of anything.

"There's nothing I can do. Give me two days."

"Give me your coordinates. We'll get you out."

Ha, ha. I'm starting to laugh maniacally. No, I can't. Because I never learned to navigate or pinpoint my position. I'm a disgrace to my species.

I wake up in the same nightmare.

"I am awake", I report and hope that someone will answer me, hope for some sign of life from my species, whatever that is, to ease this hopeless situation for me. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

"Mom, please get us out of here."

I don't answer. What the fuck do you want me to do?

Nitro sends, "Conmutter, you should come out. Megatron's getting mad."

Heh. I should change my name. Mother of the Ugly Alien Critters. That's what I am now.

"They know the parasites don't kill me. They're using me to hatch more alien creatures."

I get scared when I think about what's waiting for me. How long will I survive here, how many aliens will feed on my flesh?

"Think of something."

It's easy for him to say. Shall I just walk out of here?

I extend my tail, I slice the cocoon, I fall to the ground. Weakly, I lay there and try to stabilize my circulation.

An alien curiously steps to me, sniffs at me, turns away disinterested. Maybe I have a chance.

My system reacts so slowly. It takes me a while before I have the strength to get up.

I grope my way through the room, try to synchronise it with the map from my system. But it's so hard, the delay is noticeable. What's happening to me?

At the next corner I feel sick. I sit down. Charge my headlamp with my system, illuminate the next corridor where people are hanging unconscious in cocoons on the wall.

When I feel better, I drag myself forward. Sometimes an alien comes so close that I lie down and let him sniff at me, an excuse to take a break.

Soon I reach my goal.

I overlayed my own map of the city and the sewers as I know them and found this room.

This has been the Mountain of the Dead. I'm sure of it. Now most of the dead have disappeared and more people are hanging in cocoons on the walls. The worst thing is that the exit is blocked with the same organic mass as the other entrance, only more solid because of its smaller size.

"Nitro, can you..."

"Yeah?"

I want to send him the map, but it takes the system so long to set the marker as if it had hung up, finally the effort of losing blood makes me faint. The five percent residual risk has arrived.

I do not remember the next outbreak. I mercifully wake up back at the wall.

It's quiet, so quiet. Sometimes I imagine hearing Nitro's voice, like a voice in the back of my own mind. "Tell Megatron to drop the bomb," I say aloud, not sure if he can hear it, so I think it again. "I'm not that important."

Sometimes I hear Itsy's voice, the voice of my son, no, my daughter, sometimes I hear it in my thoughts, sometimes from my belly, haha, I'm a ventriloquist.

"Are you coming out?" someone asks. - No, I'm not coming out.

I try to access my system, but I can't. I ask for the map, but somehow nothing comes back.

Something crawls out of my arm. I think of a parasite, but it's trying to be gentle. Its sharp little legs are still stabbing me in the flesh.

Itsy sits on my shoulder and makes a series of strange noises.

"No, I can't get out. Go back inside, it's dangerous here." I don't know why I say that. It doesn't make sense. Where isn't it dangerous?

Itsy asks what's wrong with me. I'm trying to pull myself together. "I think I'm losing my mind. My system doesn't speak to me anymore. Nobody talks to me. I wanna go home. I want to die. I want them to stop."

Itsy makes some squeaky, squawking sounds, metal scraping against each other.

"Tell Megatron I need a week off. To come clean. Don't worry, I can heal anything."

More noises.

"Yes, of course, Starscream will fix it, just like always. Let him send him. He doesn't dare come in here anyway. Does he know what they did to Lockdown?"

More noises. Then the thing climbs back down my arm.

"Ouch! You're hurting me."

It disappears into the hammer space of my left arm.

The Hive is in turmoil, the creatures are running wild. I think they're bringing the eggs to safety, because some of their steps sound heavier and a few clicks are missing in the step sequence. A lot of them are rushing in one direction, towards an attack.

I try to extend my tail, but don't make it, so I grab my knife in my pocket and cut open the cocoon.

I fall to the ground and stay there.

No, I'm still alive. I'm not giving up, ever. As long as I live, I fight. Even if I have to strangle the aliens with my bare hands.

I turn on the lamp and light the floor. Scratches, filth, blood, slime. Nothing that's going to help me.

My system does not respond, but I have to find a way out. I just have to rely on my human memory. I crawl to the exit.

Hasty alien steps rush in. I drop to the ground and play dead. The alien storms past me, too busy to care for me.

Oh Primus, it's so dark. I can't find my way.

I shine a light into the area. A long corridor. I have no idea where I am. I follow it.

Again I throw myself on the ground. The incoming alien stops. Sniffs me out. Shrieks and makes preparations to chase me back from where I came, but a shriek in the distance calls him off and it leaves me lying there.

I stay where I am for now, until every step is far enough away that I dare to crawl further.

I don't want any more. I can't go on. My body is at the breaking point. But it's too early to give up. Yes, I still want to and I still can.

When I look up, I see light coming down a drain. I wish I could get up there, but my system does not answer and even if it did, the ceiling is too steep to climb along.

Somehow I lose consciousness, because suddenly I find myself climbing out of the hole. It must be a dream. I've lost my mind for good.

But it feels so good, so real. I fall to the ground, wipe up some street dust and kiss it.

No, it can't be true. I'm still glued to the wall in a cocoon and I'm imagining all this. Already I feel the pressure in my chest, which announces the outbreak of a parasite.

I lie on my knees, supporting myself with my hands on the ground and getting ready to receive the pain.

The slit breaks open. Itsy leaves my arm, jumps to the side and takes cover behind me.

From the slit on my chest metal breaks out of me, a shapeless lump made of small pieces that folds out of me like a transformation. It is big, much bigger than the parasites I have come to know.

The lump falls to the ground, begins to take shape.

I instruct Itsy to hide somewhere, then strangely squatting away from the thing.

And suddenly I see myself standing there. Not me as a person, but me in my bot form, only smaller.

He, she, it stares at me. I stare at it.

And the first moment I think: Hooray, I've left the family. Then I think: Oh, no, I've left the family.

Then it leaps up and attacks me.

As I had done a hundred times, it climbs up at me and tries to reach my neck with the tip of its tail, but I knock it away from me, one hand against its upper body, the other against its tail, which snakes up.

It lands, jumps at me again, I kick it away.

It extends its pea shooter and shoots at me.

I jump aside, take cover behind an overturned dumpster. Some bullets miss me, some hit the trash can, few hit me and hurt unpleasantly. There I discover a glass bottle, which I take as a club.

The creature jumps over the bin. I hit it sideways on the head, so that it goes down and stays there.

With raised bottle I step closer. Confused, it rises, holds its aching head, then it sees me and flees squeaking into the barrel.

I calm my gasping breath and try to understand what has just happened, but it makes no sense.

Slowly I approach the barrel, the glass bottle raised ready to hit. I look inside. There the being is lying pressed to the bottom of the barrel. Stares at me in shock for a moment and then hides its face under its front legs, as if I would disappear when it no longer sees me.

It is afraid, it comes to my mind. It is as confused as I am. I can't kill it.

"Get out of here," I finally say, throwing the bottle aside. Then I return to Itsy.

Itsy makes some kind of noise.

"Honey, I can't understand a word you're saying."

I go through the things she usually says to me. "Am I all right? I don't know. Do you see the same thing I see? Am I still in the Hive, imagining all these things? Did I die and go to hell where I pay for my sins? Or did I actually leave the Hive and something goes on here that is beyond my comprehension?"

I'm actually feeling better. I can't explain it. The injuries are burning my upper body, I feel weak and I'm having trouble breathing. But the experiences in the Hive have receded into the distance, like a bad dream that's slowly fading. I can't remember how long I was down there. I don't wanna know.

I look at the slit on my chest. It sticks together, can't be opened. Slowly, a hypothesis begins to form.

It might be a good idea to disappear. Megatron's only known reason to keep me alive is hiding over there. My Spark, my energy signature, is hiding over there.

But a war is raging in the city - the wind carries the smell of two organic alien species and their blood. This is the final piece of the Chicago mystery: The hunter-aliens storm the sewers to plant bombs and eradicate the plague. This time it takes them longer, because the alien creatures have learned their lesson and closed the exits around their center. We have to get out of here soon.

Itsy has apparently already contacted Nitro, who shortly thereafter lands on the street with a thunder.

He makes an inviting move, hands me a servo and says something in Cybertronic.

As he is obviously waiting for my answer, I just look at him questioningly.

Nitro Zeus hesitates. "Is everything okay, Conmother?" he asks in my language.

The little creature carefully peeps out of the barrel. Seeing the big robot, its withdraws again anxiously.

"I'm Human," I reply in reference to the name with which the Decepticons addressed me before they chose "Conmother. I point to the barrel. "That's Sparkling over there. Conmother no longer exists."

Nitro doesn't understand. He goes to the trash can, picks it up, looks inside.

Squeaking, Sparkling jumps out and runs to me. I get ready to fight, but it takes cover behind my legs and presses itself to the ground, front legs laid across the optics.

I take pity on the little creature, crouch down and spread my arms. "Come here, I'll protect you."

It jumps at me. For a moment, I almost fear it will jump into my rib cage, back where it came from. But it crawls under my top like a baby in a sling, its head buried on my shoulder. It smells of garbage and its claws are poking into my skin, but I can take it. Through the hole in my top, its slim body is visible, a graceful, agile body that moves gently and pleasantly like a cat.

Then it squeaks in horror, jumps out again and curls up behind my feet instead, making strange noises. I think it whines. A look down at me also tells me why: Its claws have scratched me, fresh drops of blood are smeared on my skin. It's hurt by my acid blood.

Very well, I'll take care of that as soon as I get in the cockpit. I reach out to Itsy and say "come." Itsy crawls up my body without hesitation and sits on my shoulder, then I turn to Nitro. "Okay, I'm ready to go."

On the flight back, Nitro bombards me with questions: Who is this? Why does she - oh, it's female? - looks like me? Why can't I understand Cybertronic anymore?

Sparkling curled up in my lap because I couldn't get her to sit in her own seat, she kept getting out of it and hiding in some corner.

I look into the face of the little creature that looks like me when I was transformed, only smaller and more childlike in proportion. She behaves the way I sometimes feel, overwhelmed by the dangers I face, but I have learned to hide those feelings and pretend to be strong and confident.

"I've always thought of myself as a hybrid being, half human, half machine," I explain. "But in truth, we were two beings in one body. I suspect that my ..." I don't know what to call this. The contact with the alien parasites gave me some of their characteristics. Is it an infection? "My acid blood was what caused the rejection of my machine half, that's what she is."

She always been there. She must have taken control in the Hive for the first time, the moments I can't remember.

I think back to the times when I first transformed - my machine half seemed like a foreign body with a will of its own, but soon I learned to give it commands, which it followed fluently, and I thought I had everything under control. But then I remember moments when I was drunk, gave the machine nonsensical orders and felt its confusion, but I attributed that to the intoxication. No, she was always a separate being, I see that now.

Nitro Zeus is completely confused by the information and remains silent while integrating it.

Soon we land at the camp and Nitro drops me and Sparkling off near Megatron. Sparkling immediately scurries away and hides in a pile of rubble, under the astonished gaze of Megatron. But he doesn't ask any questions, rather I see understanding light up in his optics shortly afterwards. He planted the Spark in me at the time and knows what happened, though not how or why.

But I, I would have so many questions at the sight of the strange scene in the camp. Megatron sits on a throne of rusty car wreckage. In front of him stands Optimus Prime, safe and unbound. Nearby is Lockdown, holding a shackle loosely in his servo, waiting. I suspect that on Megatron's orders, he tracked down Optimus and brought him here.

The leader of the Decepticons is addressing me. "I am Lord Megatron, second of my name, leader of the Decepticons, fighter for freedom, equality and a unified Cybertron under Decepticon rule, destroyer of the Autobots, father of millions and all Earth technology, welcome you back from your mission."

I'm laughing and something is painfully constricting inside of me. "I can see who your favorite Game of Thrones character is."

I can almost see a dark storm cloud darkening his face. "Shut up or you'll scrub my command tower, full height down to the core."

What, to the core? But Cybertron is gigantic, I've never been down to the core. In freefall I felt it take me a minute to bridge the gap between two levels and there are many down to the core. The tower must be thousands of miles high. Probably it would take just as long to scrub the tower as it would take to work off my debts on Mars. It's not worth it. I fall silent intimidatedly.

"Sara!" Optimus exclaims in surprise. "How good to see you."

Nitro nearby hears the name Optimus calls me. Yeah, just look for a connection between me and that name, you won't find any.

"Don't call me that," I answer repulsively, turning away from him. No, I can't stand the sight of those big, blue optics, full of hope and affection and the wish that everything will go back to the way it was before and I'll stand up for the Autobots' cause - no, none of that will happen.

"Megatron," Optimus says to him. "Let me talk to her alone."

"Conmother," Megatron continues unmoved. "Tell Prime the truth. Tell him what you think of his goals."

Is he serious? Megatron doesn't know what I'm gonna tell Optimus, whether he would like it or not. - Of course, that's just my theoretical reasoning.

What I say, at least when I turn to face Optimus and look at the ground at his feet, is, "Optimus, I think you're making a mistake."

I don't have to look at him to know that the statement surprises him, I hear it in his voice.

"Is Megatron making you say that? I can keep you safe."

"No!", I exclaim, thinking back to when I saw him in the server room, as a slave to humans. "Your path is wrong. You should make peace with Megatron instead of fighting for a species that exploits your kind." I don't expect him to understand.

"It is not as simple as you think. Megatron is a criminal."

That's when it hits me. I don't know exactly what Drift told Megatron, but this is the reason he let me live: To turn me against Optimus. What could be more devastating than someone like me fighting for their cause and then changing sides? Of course, in all my confusion that Megatron let me live and run free, it never occurred to me that I myself was the reason for it. I am proof that Megatron is right.

I turn away again when my task is done. This disappointed look of blue optics burning on me is unbearable.

"Sara, wait. Whatever I've done to deserve your dislike. Talk to me about it. If I've wronged you, please, give me a chance to make amends."

But I don't want to, I can't. Inside I almost collapse under the feelings of shame and guilt that are breaking in on me and I wish I could transform into my travel mode, my silver egg, and fade out the world around me. "No, leave me alone."

Oh, Optimus, can't you see that I'm not on your side anymore? Nothing can erase the injustice you will bring about.

I'm not sure Megatron understands the magnitude of this scene, but he looks at it with satisfaction. "Leave her alone, Prime. I told you, he who knows the truth joins me. It does not matter what their relationship was with you. Leave now."

Optimus said one last word to me before he left: "Come see me when you're ready to talk. My door is always open to you."

And I will, I did in the future. Does Optimus, will Optimus know I'm lying when I say I no longer have the Allspark? His plan was to destroy the Allspark. Maybe he did it to smooth things over. I feel bad.

Headache said my presence here would have no effect. Was this all predetermined? This universe is complicated.

When we're alone again, I hope Megatron will finally release me. He speaks to me. "I have made arrangements with Optimus to wait with the Autobots on Earth for you with the Allspark, while my significantly larger forces oversee the Kuiper Belt. The course of events will continue as normal for the future you."

"Is that why Daenerys is your favorite character? Because she turns to the dark side?" On the other hand, Megatron cannot kill me and order me to clean his command tower at the same time.

Megatron rolls his optics. "I have forbidden you to communicate to me any content of any Earth production."

"All die in the end, and Ramsay takes the throne!" If this is my last chance to piss him off, I want to take it. Megatron when angry is much more impulsive and doesn't plan his battle tactics, which I find beneficial to me.

Megatron bends over to grab me, but with my new alien reflexes I skillfully dodge his servo, which snaps into nothing. "You're not making sense. If everyone dies, Ramsay dies and cannot take the throne."

"Yes, he will return as White Walker."

Angrily, Megatron clenches his fist. "The protoform has broken away from you, yet you are as childish as ever."

"So what? You're gonna kill me now that I've done my job and we're no longer related?" Inside, I'm getting ready to fight. If I manage to reach him, if I use my acid blood against him ...

Itsy clings to my neck tighter and says something, probably "no". She still sees me as her mother. I remember: Back in the dungeon, my machine half was in the opposite cell, though without Spark. Itsy helped me even though I was human, unlike her siblings. What a dear creature.

"No", answers Megatron.

"No?", I ask in surprise. "Why not? It's what you've always wanted."

"I have a better idea."

Megatron looks aside in an epic movement, just as Headache lands in the vast plain.

"I will undo all your crimes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and if she hasn't died, she still walks across Cybertron, cleaning Megatron's command tower. The End.


	17. Bonus Content - Deleted Scenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deleted scenes, alternative scenes, background information etc. from my story "The Botmother vs. Aliens vs. Predator". For additional insights and a look behind the scenes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * The demand  
>  Another alternative or better to say continuation of Seldra's deal with Primus and another scene where I drop some hints about Seldra's past. Happens somewhen on the future Earth when she still looks for another way out.
>   * Lockdown tries to take revenge on Seldra  
>  I wanted to throw this in as a retrospective when Seldra meets Lockdown and freezes at the sight of him. The scene takes place in the future, when Lockdown has somehow escaped from his prison in Mars and is tracking down Seldra on Earth. He is really angry, but his revenge takes an unexpected turn. **Warning** Rape, Non-Con strongly implied.
>   * Second Meeting with the Nulagaka God  
> Lockdown brought Seldra to the Creator, While I collect ideas for the sequel I notice how important that scene is, but I have nowhere to put it, so I park it here for now.
>   * Conversation Optimus' Holoform  
>  The holoforms in Steelfeathers's Instability inspired me to create scenes of this kind, but I decided against adding this feature to my universe.
>   * Seldra recognises a Cybertronian  
>  Deleted because irrelevant.
>   * Seldra vs. Predator - Slam  
>  Deleted because too unrealistic. Read the calculations in chapter "Bonus Content - Calculations" for details.
>   * Seldra vs. Alien - The Hive 2-1  
>  After the slam scene, Seldra would have gone to the hive to remove the ropes with the acid blood, but apart from the fact that the previous scene was dropped, the Predator weapons are acid-proof.
>   * Seldra vs. Predator - The Spear  
>  This may sound strange, but the scene was too violent for my taste.
>   * Seldra is surprised by Lockdown  
>  Following the previous scene, Lockdown would have had a different badass entrance.
>   * Megatron wants to see Seldra's smartphone  
>  Deleted, because KSI took her mobile phone and Nitro is already transmitting Seldra's mobile data to Megatron.
>   * Boss asks for help  
>  Deleted because KSI took her mobile phone and the boss can't reach her anymore.
>   * James Bond moment  
>  In the cliché, the villian starts telling his life story as soon as he has the opportunity to kill the hero, giving him the chance to escape after all. As a viewer you think to yourself: What's the point of talking, why don't you just kill him right now? Then I learned that the bad guy gets satisfaction. After two years of intrigue he can't just kill the hero without telling him about all the great things he did to get there. Ha, ha, it was all part of my plan, remember that time ...? He's amused by the desperation of the hero, for whom everything suddenly makes sense. Anyway, I wanted to write a James Bond moment too, but I threw it out because I find the current ending with several involved parties and more interactions more interesting.
> 


### The Demand

"Well," I said as if to myself, looking at the growing sun on the screen, "I guess you leave me no choice".

I wished to drink a cup of tea now, symbolically relaxed, but I had to be satisfied with the thought alone.

It still took a while and I didn't expect an answer, but when the spaceship reported that we were soon too close to escape the sun's gravity on our own, I heard the voice of the Allspark, Primus' voice. "What are you doing?"

I replied: "I'm tired of being driven through the universe by you and for what? So you can just leave me alone? I can have that easier."

"What do you want?"

In my mind I took another sip of tea and took my time with the answer.

The spaceship reported again that we were close to the turning point and I confirmed: "Forward".

"I want to become human again."

"I cannot make you human again. That is not in my power."

"You have time travel technology. Take me back to the point where I'm still human."

After a while, he finally replied, "Fine," and we left.

I stood by the river again, at the point where the story began, and watched the Cybertronians fighting for the Allspark in the clouds above the city.

I pondered. In a moment, one of the Autobots would plunge into the river and hand me the Allspark. If I would accept it, the story would run its course as it did then, and the Allspark would first merge with me and finally I would become a machine when the Decepticons tried to get it out of me and killed me in the process. If I would not take the Allspark, the Decepticons would get it and destroy Earth.

"What are you doing?" I asked in the air. "My fate is sealed, no matter what I choose. Can you take me any further back?"

As if from afar, I heard the voice of the Allspark resounding within me. "I can find your energy signature at no earlier point in time. It is as if you had only begun to exist here."

Well, that was surprising. I remembered exactly what I had done before. Apparently, I had found a way to fool even gods. I kept that to myself.

"Okay," I said. "Forget about it, then. You better take me and the spaceship in the present, I mean before we fly into the sun, and bring us to Earth in my time. It's okay, you don't have to make me human. I'll take care of it myself once I turn you in."

But he could only bring me back to where I actually was and I was forced to turn the spaceship around and look for another way home.

### Lockdown is trying to get back at Seldra

**Warning: Rape, Non-Con**

Lockdown. After everything I did to him, it was only too understandable. When he got me into the servos, I was, as too often, incapable of transforming. Not that it would have helped me much.

He grabbed me by the neck so tight I could barely breathe and dragged me into his ship.

"I ... I ... just ..." I wanted to talk hi out of it, but I was out of breath.

"Too bad I can only get the bounty for you alive."

He stared at me, seemed to be trying to figure out the best way to get revenge on me. I couldn't imagine what could outweigh the endless simulations I'd sent him through before I handed him over to the humans disassembled into little pieces.

But he had an idea. He started ripping off my clothes.

"What ..." I stared in wonder at his actions as far as I could in his grip and gasping for breath. He was a Cybertronian. It couldn't be what it looked like, he didn't have the equipment.

When I was naked, the cold air made me shiver. Then he lowered his arm and dragged me at my neck carelessly through his ship.

He stopped in front of a large cage. Inside were three of his other prisoners - some alien creatures with humanoid, long thin bodies. They were so starved that I could count their ribs.

As Lockdown approached, they gathered curiously at the grate, leaning on the metal with their long, scrawny hands, their noses, the opening of which occupied the top half of the head, sniffing greedily.

"No."

Lockdown opened the cage door. At a respectful distance before Lockdown, but eager to receive me, the three gathered in a circle around the entrance.

"Lockdown, no."

"Enjoy your punishment."

He threw me into the cage and closed the door behind me.

I picked myself up, stormed to the door, but he had locked it before I could reach it.

"Lockdown, wait, I never did that to you."

He just walked away. "I don't care."

Behind me, the aliens reached out their disgusting, scrawny fingers and long tongues at me.

But when Lockdown returned half an hour later to check on things, he couldn't trust his optical sensors and just stared at the scenery.

There were the three aliens, fearfully huddled in a corner and almost tried to climb on top of each other to get as far away from me as possible.

And there was me, the new mistress of the cage, crouching in the middle and standing up expectantly when Lockdown approached. The floor was too cold to lie or sit on.

I was full of bruises and scratches, but less bad than the three aliens. My hands were covered with excrement and blood.

Lockdown stared for several seconds and could not make sense of it. "What happened here?"

I grinned mischievously and gave one of my usual vague answers. "I just won my first fight. Please don't tell anyone what I did."

I wasn't sure if he understood what I had done or if he even wanted to understand.

I added, "You must belong to an organic life form to understand. Sorry."

### Second Meeting with the Nulagaka God

When I came to senses again, I saw nothing but darkness. Not my eyes, my mind needed time to recognize this place I once visited many years ago.

Full of astonishment, I let my gaze wander over the dark ribbons of ridges of hills and knelt down to make sure it was the same bare ground of the material unknown to me as it was then.

Man, I was so stupid. I should have recognized the symbols on the wanted poster that looked like the beings that lived here.

Then I turned around, full of expectation, looking up at the red moon, which was actually an eye.

"Se'eldra Sadr'khor", my name resounded from all over the world. The dark red circle in the moon shifted from the upper edge to the center, to me. "Give me the Allspark."

Could it be? Instead of thinking about the demand, the first thing that came to my mind was: He does not recognize me.

"No."

From the top, a cloud passed over the moon. Or an eyebrow. It was hard to tell. "My people need the energy of the Allspark to thrive, or we will die. If you refuse, we will wait. We have more time than you do."

It was a big mistake, but they didn't know it yet. No one locked me up with impunity. "Okay, then wait," I replied unmoved and set off.

He really did not recognize me. If I transformed, they could penetrate my metal and get to the Allspark. In my human form, however, I would soon die of thirst, and my rotting flesh would eventually release the Allspark. He thought I was so stupid that he explained the hopelessness of my situation and did not understand how I could refuse when he promised me freedom in exchange for my cooperation.

My feet touched a bundle, exactly where I had expected it to be: a pile of black clothes with a few knives in the pockets, and also a prosthetic arm, a mechanical hand with a cold metal surface. I took this with me and continued on my way.

"What are you going to do?" the red moon asked, but I did not answer and just walked on silently.

I walked towards the moon for several hours. The moon was sinking towards the horizon - no, there was no horizon here and to speak of the "ground" or anything else would not apply. Gradually the underside of the moon tilted forward. Now it no longer looked like a disc in the sky, but slowly arched as a dome to the firmament.

That was the reason why the Cybertronians had never found it, why they found nothing but a barren planet at its location. They lived in no parallel world or other dimension, but on the inside of their creator. On my way some small Nulagaka flew past me. Whenever they came too close to me, I reflexively stopped and waited until they retreated.

Finally I reached the edge of the red dome, whose glassy material towered high above me. The dark red disk had slid directly in front of me and watched my coming.

"Bye," I said to the disk. I took the robot arm, brought its circuits to life with the power of the Allspark and threw it into the red mass with all my might. The jelly broke on its way, and it dug itself into it a few yards deep. There the arm transformed into a small Con and continued its path of destruction on its own power.

The god cried out with a deep voice, so that it made the world tremble.

### Talk with Optimus' Holoform

My human body is in hibernation and I don't like simulations. So to kill time, I put my machine body into sleep mode and time flies. It's all I can do around here anyway.

I leave my sleep mode when a man approaches me, a man in his mid-thirties with a sharply cut face and black hair. He's wearing a white cowboy hat, a red shirt and blue jeans.

"Greetings," he says politely. "May I join you?"

"Okay?" I can't resist the urge to have a friendly conversation. If he starts bugging me and is within reach of my tail, at least I'll have someone to play with.

The man sits down on the wall next to me, one leg stands casual. "You don't seem to respond well to Autobots, so they sent me to talk to you."

"Hmm." What can I say? That we're at war? I'm sure he already knows that.

"Doesn't that hurt?" He points to the dent in my side. As a reflex, I consult the data from my sensors.

"A little," I play the data down. My human flesh is constantly sending out pain signals, suppressed by my robot mode.

"Would it be such a great shame to accept a little mercy from your enemies?"

"Ha!", it escapes me and I suppress a spiteful laugh. "Do you know what it is like to live among Decepticons? It's tough. You survive the trouble or you go under. I don't need your charity." I nod to my side. "Give it a week or two, it'll fix itself."

"That sounds terrible," the man says pitifully. "No, I don't know how it is. You say there's never anybody to give you a hug? Who listens to you when you have problems? Who fights for you when you're down?"

"I can do without your pity." I get up and I turn on my other side so the man can't see my dent. "We're not cuddly toys. We face our problems and fight for ourselves."

"Don't you ever feel the need to share with someone, to tell someone about what you've experienced?"

I remember back at Cybertron. Once, Megatron had me call to his command center to talk to Optimus Prime by telecom, but Megatron stayed in the room. How I wished I could tell Optimus everything I'd experienced on Cybertron since my abduction. How they sawed me up and I came back from the dead as half a machine. How they laughed at me and played tricks on me and made me feel what they thought of me at every turn. How the machine took hold of me and changed my body in a way that I did not understand and that frightened me. But I hadn't dared to do it in Megatron's presence and told Optimus that everything was okay and I somehow got along.

"I just told you," I replied dryly. "Do you want anything else, human?"

"I'm just wondering, is your state of war the reason for your behavior with the Autobots or do you have personal reasons? On the one hand, you're not branded. On the other hand, everyone swears they've never seen you before. So what's the real reason?"

I'm hesitant to answer that. No, I don't need to explain. But I can make him experience it. "If you like, I'll show you," I offer.

He's interested. "What do you want to show me? How will you show me? Can you project holograms into the environment?"

"Something like that." I rise up in my restraints and hold the tip of my tail in front of me so he can see it. "I'll project directly into your brain what I experienced, what Optimus Prime did, why I don't want anything more to do with Autobots."

He gets up, takes a few steps closer. "This isn't some kind of trick to get me killed, is it? You can tell me if I've offended you with the question."

"No, it's no trick. Do you want to or not?"

He steps into my reach. "All right, I'm ready."

The tip of my tail snaps to his neck. I get ready to make contact with his nervous system, but there's nothing there. I watch in amazement as the man disappears into thin air at my touch.

### Seldra spots a Cybertronian

Once on the way to work I notice a blue parked car at the side of the road. I can't explain it, but there is something strange about it.

A moment ago I saw him parked, but nobody got out. As I approach, I see no one sitting in it.

"I think it's a Cybertronian, judging by the color, an Autobot," I say half-loud as if talking to myself, so Itsy can hear it.

I take out my smartphone and take a picture. In the photo it looks like an ordinary car. That's not enough evidence.

Then I get an idea and I grin. "Why don't I go over and say hello."

Like an ordinary passerby I walk along the sidewalk until I reach the car, then I casually turn around. "What an ugly, dirty car."

As I'm walking along, my foot hits something and I fall lengthwise. I look around in wonder, but I can't see where I hit.

I get up and knock the street dirt off my clothes. With this I have proved and found a way to recognize cloaked Cybertronians.

### Seldra vs. Predator - Slam

I hit the brakes hard when a flash of light hits the road in front of the car. There it is again. I'm getting tired of this.

"Itsy stay here," I say and take off my shoes.

"Will you come back?"

I lean over to renew my promise, then I get out and close the door.

But before I can check on my opponent and throw myself into the fight, the hunter-alien appears a few meters in front of me.

And another one to the right, and another one to the left of me.

Shit, that's not part of my calculations.

I don't know what to do. Everyone hold one firearm.

The first one fires and I pull up my left arm for protection - the projectile penetrates and unfolds its hooks. A steel cord hangs from the metal piece, which remains connected to the gun in the alien's hand. I lower my pain sensation.

The other two shoot. The right one pierces my shoulder, the left one shoots through my stomach. Now I hang on three strings. Oh, shit.

I fight. I try to jump to the right, but the left one holds me back. I want to jump to the front one, but the other two are holding me back. I even extend my tail, but the length is not enough to reach them.

My poor human flesh. Blood drips from the three wounds on the ground and with it my time is running out. I try to turn myself to pull all three closer, but together they pull me apart.

What should I do? They already extend their blades, ready to slaughter me.

If it doesn't go sideways or forwards, then in another direction.

I extend my engines, only the drives, the rest remains human, to shield my energy signature. And I launch.

Even though I can't do anything else, I can fly straight ahead. I fly straight up while the aliens who didn't release their weapons in time dangle from me. Man, these are heavy.

My plan is to fly into space with them, to freeze them to death and then crash back to Earth to burn them on re-entry - I have a cure for the cold, I'd have to find a shield for the heat - but they are already starting to pull themselves up on their cords, so I turn to the ground and accelerate again.

I race so fast towards the ground that I pull the aliens above me along by their cords - now I don't care if they still let go or not.

Shortly before reaching the ground I reach for my drives, which remain connected to me by cables, and pull them in front of me - the arc I am flying runs so close to the ground that the aliens hit the ground, but not me.

I slow down and roll over a few times on landing, getting tangled up in the cords, but I quickly free myself and make sure that the aliens are as dead as I can possibly wish for.

Finally. But instead of joy I feel nothing.

First I have to get rid of these hooks, but that turns out to be a problem. The projectiles have unfolded their barbs where they're locked in place and I don't see how they can be released. The other ends of the cords are stuck in the guns.

I take the guns and take the usual photo of the aliens, then I carry the weapons with me to the car where I sit down. And do nothing.

Itsy asks, "Is everything all right?"

I sigh, "I don't know yet."

And to the car, "Play Samsa's Traum - Shame."

I fiddle with these things. The one in my left arm damaged my laser pointer. I don't really care.

I might be able to cut out the one in my stomach, but what do I do with the other two? My poor human body. My muscles would be useless after this.

Of course, I can't go to the doctor either.

I just sit back and let the song play out. Shit, what am I going to do?

Itsy asks again, "Can I help you?"

I look out the window into the dark night. "I don't know. Let me think."

But I can't think of anything but ideas about how I'm gonna use these things in the future. How I get into the office, the three alien weapons in my arms and greet my colleagues as if nothing were wrong, while my blood drips on the floor. How I put the weapons next to me on the desk and work on the computer and everyone would stare at me, what a strange sight.

"I'm a-f-k for a moment," I finally say and dive into a simulation.

I haven't done that for a long time. I stand on the beach of my house simulation and look out to the sea, let a storm come up and go into the water.

What has always helped me in the darkest hours of my life was this: I drown myself in the simulation, in the storm that represents my most powerful enemy.

I swim out. The rain slaps my face and takes my breath away. The waves rise above my head, tearing me into the depths. I fight against the sea, but it is hopeless, one cannot defeat the storm, one can only survive it.

The suction pulls me so deep into the water that I can no longer reach the surface between the waves. I try to suppress the urge to breathe as long as possible and feel lost in the darkness of the deep water. The moment comes, the water fills my lungs. As my senses dwindle, I am thrown out of the simulation and sit panting heavily in the car.

Itsy looks at me anxiously and I wave away as I catch my breath again. The problems of reality seem insignificant and I see clearly again.

"I have a plan," I finally say, put on my shoes and set the car in motion.

### Seldra vs. Alien - The Hive 2-1

I stop in a deserted area near a manhole cover. I've been here before and I'm dreading going back. But I am strong, I will make it.

"I would rather you stay here," I tell Itsy. "It's dangerous. I don't know if I can do it."

"I'm coming with you," he says determinedly, and puts himself as a necklace around my neck. I take it off and pack it into my hammer space, and I also put a knife and bandages in it.

"Well, Mercedes, take care of yourself, huh? Don't let yourself get stolen again," I say as I take off my shoes, collect the three weapons and get out. In front of the manhole I take one last breath of courage before I lift the lid and descend.

Actually I want to get to the egg chamber, cut the strings with the acid blood of a specimen and disappear, but I meet a full-grown one coming towards me in the passage and I don't manage to get away in time.

It hisses at me. To protect myself I raise my arms in front of my face. The little mouth shoots out what I can only hear, so close that I feel the draft and fall backwards in shock. The alien rises above me and at any moment I expect one of its long legs to impale me. Instead, it pushes itself from behind under my head, still hissing, letting its small mouth shoot out, touching my neck with its teeth.

I see. It wants me to stand up and walk forward.

My heart is pounding with fear. What is the alien doing? It's driving me forward, the path I was going to take anyway, all the way to the egg chamber.

Actually, I wanted to transform here so that the eggs wouldn't open and I'd be spared having to swallow an alien reproduction tube, but I don't want to provoke another acid attack and leave it alone.

An egg in front of me opens. Oh Primus, give me strength to endure the next few days. The alien parasite critter jumps at me and places itself in my face as before.

I let myself fall and play dead until I hear the full-grown alien leaving. Then I rise up carefully. Feel for the cords, place them on the floor in front of me. Reach for my knife. Blindly I bend over the strings and cut into the flesh of the alien. I hear the acid splash forward and eat into the ground. Probably the knife is no longer usable.

After the hissing of the acid has ceased, I finally pull the cords out of my wounds and bandage them provisionally.

Then I wait until the parasite falls off me and prepare myself mentally for another operation.

### Seldra vs. Predator - The Spear

The tip pierces my chest, my spark, nails me to the tree behind me. The pain is ... different. I can block out the pain of my human flesh. This feels like it's decomposing my metal from the injury. The alien looks at me hard, if I can tell through his mask. With a steady hand he extends the blades of his right wrist, his left one grabs my face, fixes my head on the solid ground. He swings out.

Itsy climbs out of the hammer space onto the spear, hurls himself like one of those parasites towards the alien, clings to his neck. His head falls to the ground, then the rest of his body follows, from which a gush of green blood pours over the spear and across the ground.

Itsy lands on the spear and turns to me. My mother spark bursts with pride. That is my son, my little fighting machine. Shit, why didn't I think of that trick?

"How are you?" Itsy asks in a panic and hurries to climb off the spear and onto my shoulder.

I look at the situation and try to say something. Shit. The sensors report a leak in my Spark. I gotta come up with something if I wanna see Itsy fire his first bullet.

First, I reach into my pocket, my fingers shaking, and I type a message to Nitro that I hope makes sense. Then I try to pull the spear out of the tree, but with the pain I couldn't even move a toothpick.

The car arrives. I mean, to see something like horror when he just stays silent for a long second. "That ..." He's at a loss for words. He transforms one arm and with a jerk he pulls the spear out of the tree, just as far, so that the rest keeps stucking inside me and puts pressure on the wounds. I can't feel my legs and fall to my knees, right into the green pool of blood.

"Shall I drive you to the hospital? It looks bad."

I shake my head silently and point to his trunk. Carefully, he puts me in.

There I activate my hibernation system. Silently, I give orders with hand signals or by typing them into my phone. Itsy, first aid kit. Itsy, soldering iron and adapter. Okay, thanks. Itsy, take these life blankets and wrap them around the car. Nitro rolls down a window a couple of inches so Itsy can climb out. If I fail, at least he won't have to watch me die.

Okay, Nitro, pull out the spear.

"Are you sure? On three."

I scream softly. It feels like the energon is corroding through my human flesh.

"You're licking Energon."

Yeah, thanks for the info. I use the soldering iron to mend my Spark, simply soldering a piece of steel plate to the hole, but Energon continues to seep through the cracks that I have poorly covered. Besides, this way I can only take care of the front.

Energon is life and I have no way to recharge it. With every drop, time is irretrievably seeping out of me that I could have spent with Itsy.

"I know you don't want to hear this. But Megatron could help you. You've done well. There's no shame in accepting help in your condition."

I shake my head and lean forward to deal with the injury to my human flesh so that the Energon can only run out ofthe front, through the smaller openings.

"Do not leave me alone with your protoform. I'm not a nanny."

When Itsy finishes his task, I am still alive. I didn't expect that. I smile torturedly at him and pat him, then I lie on my stomach to sleep and hold his image before my mind's eye, so that it gives me the strength to see him again.

### Seldra is surprised by Lockdown

In the middle of the night there's a knock on the window. I startle and think I imagined it in a dream, but then it knocks again, more energetically.

What's that at this hour? What time is it, anyway? Flashlights shine in my face from outside and blind me. They've pulled down the life rafts. Itsy, in wise foresight, has already taken cover as my necklace. Nitro plays normal car, as agreed.

"Cemetary Wind. We have the car surrounded. Come out and make no resistance."

Fucking dirty people. I'm surprised I manage to drag myself into the driver's seat. All covered in my blood. The flashlights shine on the bright blue energon spots inside the car, which have partially mixed with my red blood to Decepticon purple.

With difficulty I unlock the door and the agent rips it open, a gun pointed at me. "Go. Get up."

I swing my legs out, I try to lift myself up, but colorful spots appear before my eyes and I fall to the ground. There I stay lying there, sighing and leaning against the car.

Behind the metal plate against which I lean, I feel a rattling sound as a sign that Nitro is starting to transform and I give him a slap to make him stop. You've been in the lab for ages, babbling about me helping you escape and now you want to be locked up again? Don't you dare. I'll kill you if you try to transform now. Nobody scratches your paint but me.

In view of my injuries I feel surprisingly well and since half of my vital sign sensors are still offline, I quickly run some simulations in which I calculate variations of the injury. Hm. With the blood loss, I should have been forced into bot mode by now. My wound is exposed, looks like the energon burned through the dressing. I didn't know it reacted that way with cloth.

The agents look at me with disgust. Their leader pulls out a Geiger counter that flips over with joy as it's held in my direction. They have clearly identified the culprit and don't get the idea that there could be three of us.

"Well, probably had a fight, huh? Decepticon?"

He points to the dead alien at the tree.

"I am human," I declare, tortured. My voice is back.

"Oh, yeah, and what's that?" The agent leans in to take a sample of an energon stain with his finger.

"Do not touch," warns another.

"I'm half human, half Cybertronian," I explain as if I'd meant it all along. "And I am not a Decepticon."

"Anyway. Our sensors picked up alien activity nearby, so we came to check it out. You've been hiding long enough."

"Alien activity? Alien activity?" The anger makes the pain fade into the background. "I reported alien activity to you every week and there was never any reaction from you." I take my smartphone out of my pocket and go to my outbox. "Here, I sent you this last week. The week before that. The one four weeks ago. They invited me to hear from me in person about what I saw, but all that comes from them is just the question of whether they transform. You're not interested in aliens. If I've caused any alien activity, it's for self-defense because you guys aren't doing your job."

The agent takes my smartphone and wipes through the pictures. "This is not our responsibility. We're just after you Transformers."

"There is no 'you Transformers'. I have nothing to do with the others."

At that moment, a pitch black car speeds up and slows down in a slide, throwing off in an arc earth that's raining down on the alien, the agent in front of me and me.

The doors of the car open, the side windows open to the front. Servos slide out of the car left and right, brace themselves against the ground, then the windshield folds forward and the hood disintegrates into its individual parts before all the changes become too much for my human brain to process.

Lockdown rises. He exposes a cannon, but when he takes a look at me pathetic creature, he changes his mind and replaces it with a hook.

### Megatron wants to checkout Seldra's Smartphone

I'm still pouting when Megatron calls me - again. I just left him the moment before.

"Bring me your phone," commands Megatron.

What? My smartphone? With all the pictures I took, the videos of me getting my ass kicked by ugly alien creatures?

I turn away from him. Pretending to put the smartphone in my mouth, but letting it slide into my other hand and disappear into hammer space, I turn around empty-handed and innocent.

Megatron straightens up. Comes closer with slow steps so that I feel his displeasure in the vibrations of the floor and have to pull myself together not to retreat. Oops, I take a step back.

Megatron stops in front of me, extends the servo. "I have given you an order and I expect you to obey it. Are you gonna start up with your kid stuff again?"

"I don't want you to see me get my ass kicked by the aliens."

I mean, to hear a hint of amusement in his voice. "We don't know you any different." That's ... actually a point. Somehow I was hoping to clear my name.

His look is unbearable. Even when I'm not looking, it pushes me down. I reach into my hammer space and put my smartphone into his open servo. "Keep it to yourself."

He nods contentedly. I cannot expect praise for following orders. My praise is that I'm not being punished.

On the screen, the data rushes through as Megatron searches the storage. He pauses at a sound file. "I don't believe it. You've got Starscream's engine noises as a ringtone."

Actually, I got his engines as a wake-up call and his EMP cannon as a ringtone. There's nothing that grabs my attention faster. If I just hear the first note, I'll run amuck. "Of course. So I can turn him off as often as I want."

"And a picture of me as background."

I got this image from the archives at the research facility. Although they photographed Megatron frozen, the layer of ice only makes his red optics glow more menacingly. It reminds me to maintain the necessary security measures when handling Decepticons. Everyone knows what happens if you don't. "You watch over my phone."

"You're completely insane." 

I give him an offended look. I don't know what Megatron has - that's a cool picture.

Now he's alternating images in rapid succession and the videos are playing back at five times the speed - maybe ten times - as he sifts through the collected evidence of my adventures. I'm about to turn away, when all of a sudden he goes "Explain this to me." He stalls the smartphone so I can see the photo of the severely damaged Lockdown in the Hive.

I'm trying to think of a photo or a video to show the acid blood, but I can't remember any. Which doesn't mean anything. "These aliens have blood of acid that can dissolve our metal. Lockdown has stepped into a nest of eggs, an unfortunate accident."

Megatron is silent. I can't tell what he thinks.

If Lockdown went ahead as I have said, he first called the humans who, with a 90 percent probability, failed to save him. Then he called his own people, who are 70 percent likely to have failed. Makes 63 percent chance he's still in the hive, still alive. Oh, minus the possibility that he tried to escape on his own and turned the aliens against him, but I think he's too smart for that. I'd keep that to myself. Not that I'm expecting any kind of response, but just in case.

### Boss asks for Help

Just now Megatron hands me the phone to give it back to me, there are banging noises coming from it.

I hurriedly reach for the buttons to silence it. I received a voice message from my boss. The human one, I mean. He sounds tearful, desperate. "Seldra, I need your help. The aliens have surrounded our house. One entered the living room through the front garden. We're holed up in the basement. Please, we need your help. We have a baby with us."

I didn't get my name for nothing. I've seen people die before, but a baby? I ... feel bad. I call him back. As soon as someone picks up, I bomb the line with instructions. "Watch out, I tell you how to get out. Be calm and subservient. Do whatever the aliens ask you to do. If you have the opportunity, let the parasites that jump out of the eggs plant eggs into you and your wife, then you will have at least two hours in which you can move freely. When you are safe, have the parasites removed as soon as possible. About the baby ... it might not survive. Good luck." There's a small chance the baby might make it through alive if they carry it close and follow my instructions exactly, but I don't tell them that so as not to disappoint them.

"Seldra? I thought you never speak on the phone."

"It doesn't matter anymore. They found me."

"Who are they? Are they holding you? Let me talk to them."

I sigh. "Do you know I'm half Transformer? And the reason I can't leave here is because of Megatron?"

It is momentary silence as he thinks. Then he repeats, "Let me talk to him. I'll negotiate with him and in return you'll help my family."

Not a chance. Nothing gets me back to that ugly-ass city. "I've told you everything you need to know to save yourself. I wish you well." Then I hang up.

"It is my job to decide who I will negotiate with," comments Megatron, turning away indifferently. "For once, I'm gonna let you get away with this. I would have told you not to interfere anyway."

### James Bond Moment

Nitro overwhelms me with questions: Who is this, why don't I understand Cybertronic anymore, why didn't I answer his radio messages?

All I'm saying is, "In a minute." I'm not gonna explain it all twice.

Nitro Zeus drops me off at Megatron's camp, right at the warlord's feet.

Sparkling takes one quick look at him and crawls back behind my feet.

And Megatron asks the same question, "What is the meaning of this?"

My big moment has come. I'm going to savor my last moments to the fullest. There's no reason to hold me back anymore.

"All these years, I thought the Spark that kept me alive was the Allspark, and you let me believe it. But in truth, you pulled a sparkling from your Spark and put it in my chest, didn't you?"

I know the answer. He already admitted it. "That was a smart move. Maybe I would have died and the Allspark would have transformed into something else. But that way, you could make sure that the Allspark was under your control, that there was always a Decepticon nearby."

"I didn't expect you to cause us such terrible problems. It was too late to back out."

"I should have seen it sooner: You were there when I first awoke on Cybertron as a hybrid being. The Doctor said you sent everyone out. Starscream complained that you were giving me too much slack, plus he kept calling me Sparkling, maybe he knew."

"It was so typical of Megatron to put everything into his own servos, to control everything himself" Starscream throws in.

"But it wasn't until Optimus said my Spark wasn't the Allspark. All that time, I was two beings in one body, not one being with two halves. I remember my early days on Cybertron when the machine felt like something foreign before our systems connected."

I look at the little creature that takes refuge in my top. "Something happened to me in the hive. I suspect my mind got broken - no, the machine mind got broken - and my two halves have separated. Only what is necessary to survive is probably left. Sparkling here has gotten my memories from all the times I've been transformed, all the lost battles, all the hours when I was unconscious in the Hive and a parasite on my face took my breath away. Is that right, Sparkling?"

The little creature on my chest is trembling.

"Remember Cybertron?"

She shakes her head.

"Do you remember this?"

I pull out my smartphone and call up one of the videos so Sparkling can hear the sound, the screams in the sewers in the background while I show and tell.

"Turn that off."

Oh, she can talk. Well, if she asks me nicely, I'll grant her request.

"Remember this?"

I call up another video of a parasite screeching as it bursts out of a chest cavity.

Sparkling grabs the smartphone, jumps to the ground and eats it. Then she runs to a mountain of debris and hides inside it.

I stare stunned, alternating between my empty hand and the spot where she ate my Smartphone. That did not happen.

Megatron takes the opportunity: "You are a full-grown human being, she is a protoform. Everyone on Cybertron has treated you like one. Itsy stayed small and weak because your Spark wasn't mature enough to create its own protoforms."

"How ironic," I finally go on. "My strength, if you can call it that, was in my machine half, but could not fully develop. My fighting spirit always came from the human."


	18. Bonus Content - Explanations about the Background

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course I should better present the background of the story to the reader in a conclusive way, but in case I didn't succeed, here again for rereading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * Code of Honour of the Yautja  
>  My explanations on the behavior of the Predators in the story.
>   * DNA Reflex of the Xenomorph  
>  My explanations of the changes Seldra is going through. 
>   * Chicago or Transformers vs. Aliens vs. Predator  
>  The background story, which is only fragmentary.
> 


### Code of Honor of the Yautja

I've been studying the Yautja code of honor.

At first I had a different introductory scene. The Predator considers Seldra to be harmless and unworthy, but she is in the way in his hunt for the Xenomorph, so he tries to push her aside.  
First Seldra overreacts and strikes back, and the Predator realises that she knows how to defend herself, but I thought that was too much.  
In the next version she lets herself be pushed aside, takes the hint and goes home. Not enough action.  
In the current version he thinks she is a Xenomorph at first, when she suddenly transforms.

Her hiding place in the darkness seems confusing. Her metal has taken the temperature of water, making her invisible to the thermal image. However, one could argue that the corridors and other obstacles must also be invisible. In the video clips of the thermal imaging cameras in the films, you can see rough outlines. However, I wonder why the Predator did not see the mud-covered Dutch in the first film, when he can see outlines?

My idea is that he doesn't expect beings to change their body temperature out of the sudden. So he sees Seldra's outlines, but doesn't associate her with the creature he just fought, especially when she stands still.

One person I talked to advocated the theory that the Ppredator in the film constantly switches his camera: To move, he sees the outlines, while observing, he switches to the shadowy thermal image. But I think my idea is better.

In the spaceship, the Predator scans Seldra's skeleton for the first time and notices her metal skull, giving her a new value as a trophy. Seldra uses her laser pointer. The Predator thinks this is the aiming device of the actual weapon. He assumes that Seldra has a firearm, from then on it is acceptable for him to attack her from a distance.

The Predators pick up Seldra's trail and observe her in the city. The attacks approach her apartment until they ambush her there. They watch her on her way to work and find that the empty laboratory at night is a good opportunity for an attack.

In the laboratory, when she stands on the chair with the broom, he takes this as a challenge for close combat and lets himself be trapped instead of shooting at her.

Eventually, the Predator has her cornered so far that he could kill her, but then he discovers Itsy in her body. During the last scan in the spaceship Seldra was alone. He is completely confused by the strange-looking creature: is this a new kind of parasite or is it a baby, is she pregnant? Is he allowed to kill Seldra or not?

In the films, it is often the case that a human being wins the reputation of the Predators through outstanding commitment in battle and is spared. Seldra fights dirty and can no longer win the respect of the Yautja.

### DNA-Reflex of the Xenomorph

Another point about which I have not found all the official information I would have liked to have found is the DNA reflex. The Chestburster takes DNA from its host to adapt to the environment, while the host receives DNA from the Chestburster. Usually the latter has no consequences, as the host dies after the outbreak, but thanks to her hybrid nature Seldra survives.

We have Ripley 8, created as a clone of Ripley with mixed DNA. Internet lists a number of xenomorphic properties:

  * the protuberances on her back that have been surgically removed
  * Quick reflexes, physical strength
  * Weakly potent acid blood
  * Hard, blue-green discolored fingernails
  * Pronounced sense of smell



There is a problem with this: Ripley 8 was born with mixed DNA and the properties had time to form. In my imagination, the outgrowths can only develop as one grows up and the discolored fingernails at least need time to grow out. So the change in Seldra is not immediately noticeable.

On the other hand, we have Dr. Church, who was infected with a dead Chestburster, which he operated out himself. He showed no distinct xenomorphic, none of these physical characteristics. Hence my idea: Either the Chestburster must be alive for the DNA exchange to take place - but Internet also says that it starts as a mutagenic fluid. Or the Chestburster has to grow up to the outbreak for the DNA exchange to complete.

So I decided that Seldra:

  * after she has removed the Chestburster she shows no symptomps
  * Reflexes, physical strength and sense of smell slowly develop after the second Chestburster breaks out of her. This is only vaguely noticeable in that her physical problems decrease and gives her an advantage in the fight against the Predator.
  * I estimate that it takes two weeks from the beginning of the transformation until the new, discolored parts of the fingernails grows out, so she notices this about after the time period in the story.
  * She won't notice the acid blood for a long time. Nitro is immune thanks to her drink.



The behavior of the Xenomorph compared to Ripley 8 is different. She is attacked by a Facehugger, but the queen trusts her. So I take the liberty of claiming that the Xenomorphs have no problem planting more Chestbursters in Seldra.

More features:

  * Resistance to pain - Seldra has it anyway through her eternal battles and for free by the hibernation system.
  * resistance to electric shock - is associated with her machine half
  * healing ability: The slit on her chest closes due to fine magnetic inclusions which are dissolved by the acid blood and open the scar again. When Sparkling erupts, the slit heals.
  * Violence - there is no difference to her usual, morally questionable behavior and fighting spirit.
  * perception of the presence of other Xenomorphs - this is not clear with Seldra, since not as developed as with Ripley 8.



Whether Ripley 8's skin is immune to the acid blood is not known. I say Seldra's human flesh is immune to the acid blood because it must flow through her veins without causing harm. Her metal is different. The acid blood corrodes the sensors that measure her blood levels, then the metal that comes in direct contact with her flesh, but this metal is part of her bones and organs, so the black, armor-like layer forms on the surface that supports her body after Sparklings eruption, and her lost organs then slowly grow back in the Xenomorph version.

In the main story the reader is thrown a few fragments about the events in Chicago and I am almost sorry that Seldra is too limited in her perception to fathom the mystery.

It was in this timeline that the first outbreak of Xenomorphs occurred in Chicago. The Autobots rushed in to help the humans, but as the aliens spread through the sewers (and because Transformers suck against Xenomorphs) they could not stop the plague. A cloaked ship of the Predators joined them, which the Autobots could not see. The Predators successfully did the dirty work and blew up the entire Chicago sewer system.

Humans only noticed the Transformers and the explosion and have been hunting them ever since.

Unfortunately, the aliens were not completely wiped out. A truck driver brought a Chestburster from Chicago to the city where the story takes place and the spread started all over again.

Whenever Seldra reports alien activity to the government, they only see the same tracks as in Chicago and increase their efforts to hunt down the Transformers. Seldra's behavior does not exactly help to dispel suspicion.

The aliens have learned their lesson and react to their decimation by the Predators, or triggered by Lockdown's attack, by locking the entrances near their center.

Megatron accuses Optimus Prime of allowing the humans to believe that the Decepticons destroyed Chicago. What a ridiculous war.


	19. Bonus Content - Writing Process

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If the writing strategy for the Expansion story seemed complicated to you, then get ready for this.

I experimented with Scrivener's ability to arrange folders and files hierarchically to represent different variations of the story. The idea is to arrange scenes as files one after the other like before, but to show decision possibilities in folders below the files when I have several ideas how to proceed. Sometimes several plot lines merge back together, I can represent this with Scrivener's internal links. With that I already get confused. I want to add thoughts to a scene and click through the plot tree, only to find that I took a wrong turn somewhere. Creating new links in the deep hierarchy becomes tedious. Furthermore, the portfolio cannot be scrolled sideways. To read the folder and file names deep in the hierarchy, I have to drag the portfolio sideways.

In addition, the variants become more and more complicated. Whole storylines run slightly different depending on events that happened before or didn't happen. Partly I depict this with comments, partly with similar scenes in different branches. I lose the overview. I feel like the story will collapse into a black hole if I add more storyline.

It gets exciting when I start writing the story. Either I choose the best storylines and decide on a linear, complex story, whereby I bring as much as possible into the linear plot, as I did with the Expansion of the Botmother. Or I keep the tree structure and write a story in which the reader decides how to proceed, similar to Fellswap Slave, but with many more branches.

Originally, the idea was to start with the scene where Seldra falls from the house onto the roof of the car while fighting with the Predator. If the reader chooses the Decepticon outbreak, it is the story 300 years in the future. When she steals the car, it's 2010 after her time travel back with Headache, without the Allspark, but with the incident on Nosgoth, where she gets Itsy. If she hides in the pond, then the incident on Nosgoth did not take place and she still has the blessing of Primus, which later leads to the separation of Sparkling. I wouldn't tell about her work at the software company and research facility until afterwards, otherwise it's too obvious that Nitro is the car. The hiding place in the pond remained an open end for a long time, because I couldn't remember where it originally led to and only later did I decide that it fits the Sparkling strand.

But that only makes sense before my current state. There are more and more ideas that either have no place in this story or I write till I collapse and never get it finished.

Apart from that, even the current structure is too simple to represent the possibilities I have in mind. Take the division of Sparkling. It would make sense for Seldra to buy Sparkling out from Lockdown, and in return, get into debt with her boss, who sends her to the research facility in return for work. As a nice gimmick, she can secretly get parental advice from Nitro. However, she then no longer has her bot powers, which makes the fight against the Predator more difficult. She can no longer fake the images from Nitro's memory. Also, the split should happen after the rescue of Lockdown, which in the original idea could only happen much later, after Megatron sends her out. Unless she rescues someone else from the Hive now. In another variant, it's only 2009 and Mirage spots Seldra, whom she lures into the Hive, then Optimus when he inquires, then Megatron orders Optimus' rescue - because if he dies, a new leader is elected, but as long as Optimus is alive and can't lead them, chaos reigns among the Autobots. The actual story is neither a tree nor a graph, but rather something similar to a graph, where the line of the predecessors you visited affects the coloring of subsequent nodes. I am overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Finally I decided that it is the author's job to lead the story to its best possible version and to delete unnecessary parts. A story in tree form shifts the responsibility onto the reader. So I cut up the tree and transformed it into a linear story with my favorite moments. Now I write parallel at all chapters, so that events are reflected in later consequences, as it should be, and no reader notices what a colossus the story was in its creation.


	20. Bonus Content - Calculations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Seldra carry three Predators?  
> I calculate Seldra's weight, propulsion, maximum speed etc. and answer the question how much she can carry in flight.

I wrote the scene in which Seldra flies vertically into the air with three Predators, only to crash to the ground afterwards. Then I asked myself: is that even possible? I did some calculations.

**Question** : how much does Seldra weigh?  
 **Consideration** : We don't know the density of transformium/cybertronium. The percentage of Seldra's body that transforms into metal varies with time. Seldra's weight itself is different: for example, on Cybertron it decreases due to lack of food. The transformation progresses, sometimes she loses parts etc. So for a rough estimate I assume that she weighs 60kg as a human being. 12% of the weight goes to the bones. Instead of the density of transformium I take the density of iron, 7874 kg/(m^3). I take the density of water, 1000 kg/(m^3)  
 **Answer** : out of 60kg, 12% bone mass is 7.2 kg. Times 7.874 to arrive at the density of iron = 56.6928 kg.  
I add this to Seldra's weight without the bone mass: 52.8 kg + 56.6928 kg = 109.4928 kg  
So let's say Seldra weighs 110 kg.

**Question** : What is the acceleration of Seldra?  
 **Consideration** : Since I don't know the power of Seldra's engine, I'll see what a comparable engine can deliver. The Bell Jet Flying Belt on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack is stated at 1,900 N. I simply take that as maximum. I can still correct downwards if that is too much for me.  
 **Answer** : F = m*a, so Seldra has an acceleration of 17.27m/(s^2)

**Question** : What is Seldra's top speed? I imagine ridiculous 130km/h, is that realistic?  
 **Consideration** : If acceleration is applied endlessly to a body, ideally it can go infinitely fast. I can't get around the idea of including drag. This is either determined in the wind tunnel - not available for Seldra - or calculated using the cross-sectional area, which I don't know either. So I reach back into my bag of tricks: I assume the same cross-sectional area for Seldra, and therefore the same drag, as for a human falling vertically. Wikipedia says that air resistance increases quadratically with speed. Wikipedia also says that a vertically falling person will have a maximum speed of 500km/h, = 138.9m/s, from that point on the braking effect due to the air resistance is as great as the acceleration due to gravity of 9.81m/(s^3). So I have everything I need.  
 **Answer** :  
Air resistance (braking) = X*v^2  
X is my factor here to obtain a meaningful equation. I couldn't find the official name for it. It is 0.0005084690417/m  
Now I change the equation to v and set Seldra's maximum acceleration. Just as the skydiver does not get faster if the acceleration is as great as the braking from the drag, so Seldra cannot accelerate any further if the drag compensates for her acceleration.  
V_max = (17.27m/(s^2)/X)^(1/2) = 184.31 m/s or 663.5 km/h (horizontal), 436 km/h vertically upwards. Impressive! Far away from my imagination and a bit too much for my taste. However, this maximum speed is purely theoretical. Seldra gets tired quickly and practically does not reach this speed, so I leave it like this for now.

**Question** : How much can Seldra carry?  
 **Consideration** : Just like a body can theoretically accelerate infinitely in a vacuum, acceleration can be applied to any weight, it just takes longer and longer to accelerate it. The point is that when Seldra flies vertically upwards, she must accelerate more than the force of gravity pulls her down. I.e. if her acceleration based on her weight is less than or equal to 9.81m/(s^2), she won't come up.  
 **Answer** : Again we take F = m*a, but this time we want to have m, if a=9.81m/(s^2),  
m = 1900 N / 9,81m/(s^2) = 193.68 kg

How much does Lockdown weigh? As a passenger car, at least a ton. Destroyed in the Hive, maybe half that amount. How much do three Predators weigh? Let's say 100kg each. That means Seldra has to carry 610kg including her own weight if she carries Lockdown, or 410kg if she carries three Predators. However, she can only carry 190kg in total, otherwise her acceleration falls below the force of gravity. Maybe she can pull Lockdown forward, but flying vertically with three Predators in tow is completely unrealistic.

So **answer** : no, Seldra cannot carry three Predators. The scene gets deleted, or is replaced by another one.

**Question** : Can Seldra drag Lockdown?  
 **Consideration** : Seldra's motive power must overcome static friction. The static friction is calculated by multiplying the weight force by the static friction coefficient. What is the static friction coefficient of steel on stone? The Internet says steel on steel is 0.15, stone on stone is 0.60. Let's take the mean.  
 **Answer** : static friction = 500kg*9.81m/(s^2)*0.375 = 1839.375 N. This is just under the 1900 N that Seldra can theoretically apply. No, Lockdown is still too heavy. Seldra will have to come up with something else.

**Fun Fact** : With all this calculating I can now calculate the power and acceleration of Starscream and they are exactly HOLY SHIT!


End file.
